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Dessert

Apple Roly-poly

A steamed apple roll made with a soft dough, 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

Make the dough

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

  2. Rub the lard into the dry ingredients until well mixed.

  3. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

Fill and roll

  1. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll it into a sheet ¼ inch thick.

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

  3. Roll the dough up like a jelly cake, sealing the edges to prevent juices from escaping.

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 dough's structure once mixed with liquid and fat.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the dough as it cooks.
Lard or butter
Rubbed into the flour to tenderize the dough and add richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft, workable dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the apple filling.
Apples
Provide moisture and fruity flavor inside the roll.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges when rolling up the dough. If the edges are not sealed firmly, juices from the apples can leak out during steaming, leaving the filling dry and the roll less moist. Keeping the seam closed holds the juices inside the roll as they release heat.

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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