Name: Apple Dumplings
Ingredients: 2 cups white or Graham flour; Tart apples (as many as desired); Sugar (to taste); 1/4 teaspoon allspice; Boiling water

Why it works: Flour and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,302 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dumplings

Make a biscuit dough crust using the flour.
Pare, quarter, and core the apples, or use them whole after extracting the core.
Roll out a piece of dough about 1/4 inch thick and place an apple in the center.
Add sugar and allspice to the apple, then pinch the dough together to seal.

Bake and serve

Place the dumplings in a baking pan, filling it adequately.
Pour boiling water into the pan until it is half full.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.
Serve hot with fruit sauce or sugar and milk.

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.

Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,302 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together998 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

White or graham flour: Forms the biscuit dough that encloses the apple and sets as the crust.
Tart apples: Provide the fruit filling, which softens and turns tender during baking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the apple flavor come through in the filling.