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Dessert

Lemon Dumplings

Lemon dumplings are small baked dumplings made with grated bread, suet, sugar, eggs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the grated bread, chopped suet, and moist sugar together.

  2. Finely mince the lemon peel and add it to the mixture.

  3. Moisten with the eggs and strained lemon juice, then stir well.

Cook and serve

  1. Divide the mixture into small buttered cups and tie them down.

  2. Boil the cups for 30 minutes.

  3. Turn the dumplings out onto a dish, sprinkle with sifted sugar, and 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Grated bread
Provides the bulk that holds the mixture together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the dumplings rich and moist as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set during cooking.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps moisten the dumplings.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma from the peel and juice.

The step that matters

Tie the cups down firmly before boiling. If the cups are not sealed well, water can seep in and make the dumplings soggy. A snug seal keeps the mixture contained so it steams and holds its shape during the 30 minutes of boiling.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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