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Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings are boiled apple-filled dough parcels wrapped in muslin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon 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 Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling and dough

  1. Mix the sliced apples, coffee sugar, butter, water, essence of lemon, and ground cinnamon together.

  2. Roll out common pie crust dough and cut it into circles.

  3. Place a portion of the apple mixture in the center of each circle.

Wrap and steep

  1. Wrap each dumpling in thin muslin.

  2. Boil a pot of water and steep the wrapped dumplings for 15 to 20 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and soften as they cook, with a tart flavor.
Coffee sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples taste rounded and syrupy as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the filling.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice that pairs with the cooked apples.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a steady boil while steeping. A steady boil transfers heat quickly and evenly to the wrapped dumplings, so the pastry sets and the apples soften together. If the water drops well below boiling, heat transfer slows and the centers can stay underdone.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, coffee, sugar, butter, 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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