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Mixed Dumplings

Mixed dumplings made with flour, milk, butter, eggs, bacon, and fried bread crust, boiled and served with fruit or sauerkraut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mixed Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a saucepan, mix flour, milk, and butter over medium heat until it doesn't stick to the pan.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add egg yolks, salt, cinnamon, sugar, fried bread crust, and bacon.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Shape and cook

  1. Form medium-sized dumplings using a tablespoon.

  2. Boil dumplings in salted water for 5 to 6 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with stewed pears, cranberries, prunes, or sauerkraut.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the starchy base that thickens with milk and holds the dumpling together.
Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the dough while helping it set during cooking.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and help the dumplings puff and stay tender.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Bacon
Contributes savory fat and flavor throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air only while they are whipped. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, so the dumplings turn dense instead of light and tender.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

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