Name: Cherry Dumplings
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1 cup prepared flour (or 2 cups flour and baking powder for biscuits); 2 cups stoned cherries; 2 heaping tablespoons lard; 2 cups sweet milk; a little salt

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cherry Dumplings

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1 cup prepared flour (or 2 cups flour and baking powder for biscuits)
2 cups stoned cherries
2 heaping tablespoons lard
2 cups sweet milk
a little salt

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Rub the lard into the salted flour.
Add the milk and mix until combined.
Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick.

Fill and shape

Cut into squares and place 2 tablespoons of stoned cherries in the center of each.
Sprinkle with sugar, then bring the edges together and pinch them closed.
Place the dumplings on a floured baking pan with the joined edges facing down.

Bake and serve

Bake until done and serve hot.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Lard: Cuts into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture in the dough.
Flour: Forms the dough structure that holds the filling and shapes the dumplings.
Sweet milk: Hydrates the flour so the ingredients bind into a workable dough.
Stoned cherries: Provide the fruit filling and moisture that cooks inside each dumpling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to the cherry filling and aids gentle browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Pinching the edges closed. If the seams are not sealed firmly, cherry juice can leak out during baking, leaving dumplings dry and the filling thin. Placing the seams facing down helps keep them shut while they bake.

“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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Cherry Dumplings