Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Dumplings

A sweet dumpling made with flour, butter, lard, strawberries, and a sugar‑lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Strawberry 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.

Make the dough

  1. Sift flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt together.

  2. Work in butter and lard with your fingers.

  3. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

Fill and shape

  1. Roll out dough to ½ inch thick and spread with soft butter.

  2. Cover with sliced strawberries and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Roll up the dough like cinnamon rolls and cut into ½ inch slices.

  4. Place slices in a pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil strawberries with water for 10 minutes, then strain.

  2. Return strained liquid to the stove and add 1½ cups sugar, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons flour.

  3. Cook until smooth and pour 1 cup of sauce over dumplings in the pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with remaining 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 dough structure that holds the rolled layers together while baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough and helps it flake as it bakes.
Lard
Shortens the dough, giving it a tender, crumbly texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the dumplings rise and turn light.
Strawberries
Provide fruity flavor and juice that becomes the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the dumplings and sauce and helps the sauce thicken and turn glossy.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until smooth. Flour thickens the liquid only when it is cooked through; stirring while it heats prevents lumps and gives a smooth, glossy sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes