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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

A sweet dish of dough dumplings filled with apples, cooked in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough and egg wash

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, water, lard, butter, sugar, and salt until combined.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolk and milk together.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Brush the dumplings with the egg and milk mixture using a light brush.

  2. Peel, core, and sugar the apples, then add a small piece of butter to each.

  3. Place the apples into the dumplings.

Cook

  1. Put the dumplings into a bag with 2 tablespoons of water.

  2. Cook for 30 to 35 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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the apples and sets as it cooks.
Lard and butter
Fat that keeps the pastry tender and helps it separate into flaky layers.
Green apples
Form the filling, adding moisture and a tart flavor that balances the sugar.
Egg yolk and milk
The wash adds richness and helps the pastry brown as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples and pastry brown.

The step that matters

Cooking in a bag with water. The small amount of water creates steam around the dumplings, cooking the apples through while the pastry sets. Too little steam can leave the apples firm and the pastry doughy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, 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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