Name: Boiled Apple Dumplings
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 1 tablespoon lard; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; ¼ teaspoon salt; Milk (enough to make a soft dough); 4 apples, peeled and cored

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

In a bowl, mix flour, lard, butter, baking soda dissolved in a little hot water, cream of tartar, and salt.
Add milk gradually to form a soft dough.
Roll out the dough to less than ½ inch thick and cut into squares.

Shape and boil

Place an apple in the center of each square and bring the corners together.
Wrap each dumpling in a small, floured cloth and tie the top, leaving room for expansion.
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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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: Provides the structure that holds the dough together while it boils.
Lard: Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and short.
Butter: Adds fat and flavor, contributing to a rich, tender crumb.
Baking soda: Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the dough rise and lighten.
Cream of tartar: Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to produce lift.
Apples: Provide moisture and tart-sweet flavor as they soften during boiling.

The step that matters

Wrap with room for expansion. The dough rises as the baking soda and cream of tartar react and the gas expands. Wrapping the dumpling too tightly, or tying it without room, can restrict that expansion and leave the dough dense.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
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.

Apple Pudding256 recipes

Apple Cake80 recipes

Apple Meringue75 recipes

Dried Apple Cake51 recipes

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Boiled Apple Dumplings