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Dessert

Apple Roly-poly

A steamed apple roll made from a soft dough with sliced apples, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Roly-poly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Rub the lard or butter into the dry ingredients.

  3. Add enough milk to make a soft dough.

  4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and mold it smooth.

  5. Roll the dough into a sheet ¼ inch thick.

Fill and roll

  1. Spread the dough with sliced apples and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  2. Roll the dough up like a jelly cake, sealing the edges well.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the pudding on a plate and set it in a steamer over hot water.

  2. Steam for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve with wine sauce.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 structure of the dough that holds the roll together while steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the steamed dough, helping it rise and turn light.
Lard or butter
Coats flour particles so the dough is tender and short rather than tough.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that contrast with the sweet filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rich within the mild dough.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges of the roll. If the edges are not sealed well, steam and juices can escape or leak into the water, and the filling may spill out and the roll may come apart while cooking.

Swap the apple

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

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

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