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Dessert

Baked Apple Dumplings

A baked dish of apples wrapped in pastry, sweetened with sugar and cinnamon, served with powdered sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the pastry into squares large enough to fold over the apples.

  2. Peel and core the apples.

Assemble

  1. Fill each apple with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

  2. Fold the pastry over each apple, wetting the corners and pressing them together.

  3. Arrange the dumplings in a baking pan and brush with beaten egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes or until done.

  2. Serve hot or cold with powdered 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Pastry
Wraps the apples and bakes into a crisp, flaky casing.
Tart apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and becomes tender during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and helps it caramelize slightly as it bakes.
Beaten egg
Brushed on top to promote even browning of the pastry.

The step that matters

Pressing the pastry corners together. Wetting and pressing the pastry seals the dumpling so filling does not leak out during baking, keeping the apple moist inside.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, egg, 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.

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