Why it works: Lemon and raspberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Apple Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Pare the apples and remove the cores without cutting them in half.
Fill each core with brown sugar, lemon peel chips, and a squeeze of lemon juice, or use raspberry jam or marmalade.
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the suet and flour, then add just enough water to form a dough.
Roll out the dough to a moderate thickness and cut into circular pieces, using two pieces for each dumpling.
Wrap and boil
Place an apple on one piece of dough, cover it with another piece, and seal the edges tightly.
Wrap each dumpling in a small coarse cloth that has been dipped in hot water, tying it tightly but leaving space for the dumpling to swell.
Dust the tying area with flour to prevent water from entering.
Boil a pot of water and add the dumplings, cooking them steadily for one hour.
Serve
Serve hot in a covered dish, and enjoy with cream and sugar or butter and sugar.
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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Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Apple + raspberrytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together282 recipes
Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Large juicy apples
- Provide the fruit filling that softens and becomes sweet-tart as it cooks inside the dough.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the dough rich and tender while it steams.
- Sifted flour
- Forms the dough that encloses the apple and holds its shape during boiling.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and a caramel note as it melts into the apple core.
The step that matters
Sealing and tying the dumplings. Sealed edges and a tight but roomy cloth keep water out and let the dough swell as it steams. Dusting the tie with flour helps form a seal against water entering during the long boil.
Swap the raspberry
The recipe marks raspberry as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Raspberrythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, lemon, flour. 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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