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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings are pared and quartered apples enclosed in a flour batter and steamed until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the apples.

  2. Butter cups well and set aside.

  3. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add enough milk to make a thick batter.

Assemble and steam

  1. Place a spoonful of batter in each cup.

  2. Add the prepared apples on top, then cover with more batter.

  3. Steam until the fruit is thoroughly cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooking apples
Provide the fruit filling that cooks through during steaming.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter structure that sets around the apples as they steam.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter so the dumplings rise.
Milk
Hydrates the flour into a thick batter that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Steam until the fruit is thoroughly cooked. The batter sets quickly on the outside, so the apples inside may stay firm if steaming is cut short. Thorough cooking softens the fruit and fully sets the dough around it.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More apple dumplings recipes

Baked 92Boiled 30Steamed 8 See all 219 →

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