Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cherry 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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Rub the lard into the salted flour.
Add the milk to form a dough.
Roll the dough into a sheet ¼ inch thick and cut into squares.
Fill and shape
Place 2 tablespoons of cherries in the center of each square and sprinkle with sugar.
Fold up the edges of the dough and pinch them together.
Place the dumplings seam-side down on a floured baking pan.
Bake and serve
Bake for 30 minutes or until browned.
Serve hot with a good sauce.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Lard
- Rubbed into the flour to make the dough tender and flaky as it bakes.
- Fresh milk
- Hydrates the flour so it forms a dough that holds its shape.
- Stoned cherries
- Provide the fruit filling and moisture that cooks down inside the dumplings.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cherries and helps the filling and crust brown.
The step that matters
Pinching the dumplings closed. If the edges are not sealed firmly, cherry juice can leak out during baking, leaving the filling dry and the dough soggy where it escapes.
“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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