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Baked Apple Dumpling

A baked apple dumpling made with raised dough, butter, apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a hot water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the butter thoroughly with the dough.

  2. Let the dough rise for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

  3. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces.

  4. If the dough smells sour, dissolve baking soda in milk.

  5. Roll out the dough, coat it, fold it, and knead well.

Shape the dumplings

  1. Roll out each piece thinner at the edges.

  2. Place an apple in the center.

  3. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, and a bit of butter.

  4. Enclose the apple in the dough.

  5. Place it smooth side up in a baking dish.

  6. Let the dumplings rise for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle sugar between the dumplings.

  2. Add small bits of butter.

  3. Pour in hot water.

  4. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

  5. Serve with sauce or 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Raised dough
Forms the pastry that encloses the apples and bakes into a soft, tender wrapper.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, tenderising the dough and adding flavour as it melts.
Sour apples
Provide the main filling, with tartness that balances the sweetness and a structure that holds up to baking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, dissolving into a syrup that caramelises around the apples.
Baking soda
Neutralises acid in sour dough and helps it rise.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that complements the baked apples.

The step that matters

Enclose the apple in the dough. The dough must be sealed fully around the apple. Gaps let sugar and juices leak out and burn, while a sealed parcel traps steam that cooks the apple evenly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, cinnamon. 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.

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