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Dessert

Boiled Apple Dumplings

A boiled dumpling made with a soft dough and apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour, lard, butter, baking soda dissolved in a little hot water, cream of tartar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Roll out the dough to less than ½ inch thick and cut into squares.

Form the dumplings

  1. Place an apple in the center of each square and bring the corners together.

  2. Wrap each dumpling in a small, floured cloth and tie the top, leaving room for expansion.

Boil

  1. Boil the dumplings for 50 minutes.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure while it boils.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and keeps it short.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, making the dough richer and softer.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the dough rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to baking soda, producing gas for lift and balancing the dough.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness that soften and flavour the dumpling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion when wrapping. The dough rises as the baking soda and cream of tartar release gas during boiling. If the cloth is wrapped too tightly, the dumpling cannot expand and may split or turn dense.

Swap the apple

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

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

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