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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings are sweet pastries filled with chopped apples, baked and served with a brown sugar and lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple 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 ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Work in the butter and lard until well combined.

  4. Add the milk and mix to form a dough.

  5. Roll the dough on a floured surface to ½ inch thick and longer than wide.

Fill and shape

  1. Brush the dough with melted butter and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Cover with the chopped apples and roll up like a jelly roll.

  3. Cut into 12 equal slices and place them upright in a buttered pan.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. For the sauce, mix sugar, flour, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Add butter, lemon, and hot water, then stir until boiling.

  3. Cook for 4 minutes, then pour half over the raw dumplings.

  4. Bake until the apples are tender, then pour the remaining sauce over the dumplings.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the rolled dough together while it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and gives it a rich flavour.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the dough flaky and tender as it bakes.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and becomes sweet and tender in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it thicken and turn glossy as it boils.

The step that matters

Pour the sauce over the dumplings in two stages. Pouring half the boiled sauce over the raw dumplings lets it soak in and form a syrup, while the rest added later keeps the top from drying out and gives a glossy finish. Boiling the sauce first dissolves the sugar and thickens the flour so it spreads evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, cinnamon, sugar, apple, 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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