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Boiled Apple Dumplings Like Grandmother Makes

A boiled dumpling made from dough with a sour apple center, sweetened with sugar, butter, and crab-apple jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Like Grandmother Makes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, lard, baking soda dissolved in hot water, cream of tartar, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add sweet milk or water to form a dough slightly stiffer than biscuit dough.

  3. Roll out the dough to a thickness greater than pie crust and cut into squares.

Fill and wrap

  1. Place a peeled and cored sour apple in the center of each square.

  2. Fill the core hole with sugar, a bit of butter, and crab-apple jelly.

  3. Bring the corners of the dough together and pinch to form a firm ball.

  4. Tie each dumpling in a loose cloth that has been dipped in hot water and floured inside.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the dumplings in plenty of water for one hour.

  2. Serve hot with sweetened cream or butter and sugar.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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 apple and filling together while boiling.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough, keeping it short rather than tough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with the baking soda to help the dough rise.
Sour apples
Supply tart flavor and moisture that softens as the dumpling cooks.
Crab-apple jelly
Adds concentrated fruit sweetness and tartness inside the core cavity.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth loosely and keep it floured. Flouring the inside of the cloth forms a thin crust that keeps the dumpling from sticking. A loose tie leaves room for the dough to expand as it cooks, so it does not burst or squeeze out its filling.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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