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Dessert

Baked Apple Dumplings

Baked apple dumplings are apples wrapped in dough, baked until tender and served with molasses sauce.

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 Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Stir in milk to form a dough.

  5. Roll out the dough and cut it into squares.

Fill and wrap the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Fill each apple with sugar, cinnamon, and a small piece of butter.

  3. Wrap each apple in a square of dough, sealing the edges. Dampen the edges with milk and press to seal.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 25 minutes or until the apples are tender.

  2. Serve with molasses sauce.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure once mixed with liquid.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create tenderness and flaky layers in the dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping it rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a dough and seals the wrapped edges.
Sour apples
Soften during baking and provide the tart fruit filling inside the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the apple filling and helps browning.

The step that matters

Sealing the dough around the apples. If the edges are not sealed well, filling and juices can leak out during baking and the dumpling may open or lose its shape. Dampening the edges with milk helps the dough stick firmly before pressing.

Swap the apple

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

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

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