Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
BuiUd Apple Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pastry and divide it into pieces equal to the number of apples.
Pare and core the apples, then fill the cavities with marmalade or jelly.
Roll out each piece of pastry to the size of a small saucer.
Place an apple in the center of each pastry piece and fold the dough around the fruit, sealing the edges.
Tie each dumpling in thin muslin and drop them into a pot of boiling water.
Boil for 45 minutes until cooked through.
Serve with hard butter 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.
-
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Apple + saucetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together965 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce):
- Coconutfits better
- Avocadofits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More apple dumplings recipes
You might also like
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Apple Cake80 recipes
Apple Meringue75 recipes
Dried Apple Cake51 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.