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Dessert

Apple Dumpling

A dumpling made with a tender dough and sliced apples, boiled and served with butter, sugar, nutmeg, or sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, lard or butter, and salt.

  2. Add enough water to form a tender paste and roll it out.

  3. Work in the lard or butter as you would with pastry.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Cut the dough into circular pieces, about the size of a small plate.

  2. Place a cup of sliced apples in the center of each piece.

  3. Fold the dough over the apples and seal the edges.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the dumplings in water for about 25 minutes.

  2. Serve with butter, sugar, nutmeg, or a sweet 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that encloses the apples.
Lard or butter
Works into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the pastry.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling that becomes soft and sweet during cooking.

The step that matters

Working in the lard or butter. Rubbing fat into flour coats the flour particles and limits gluten development, which keeps the pastry tender rather than tough. Adding water gradually and handling the dough lightly helps the paste stay tender.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, 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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