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Dumplings and Puddings

Apple dumplings baked with butter, sugar, and boiling water, served with pudding sauce or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Dumplings and Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Core the apples and wrap them tightly in dough.

  2. Place the dumplings in a well-buttered baking dish, smooth side up.

Bake and serve

  1. Top each dumpling with a small piece of butter and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Pour in 1 cup of boiling water.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes, basting once with the liquid.

  4. Serve with pudding sauce or cream and sugar.

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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Fruit filling that softens during baking and gives the dumplings their main flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the dough brown while keeping the dumplings moist.
Sugar
Sweetens the dumplings and helps the topping caramelise in the baking liquid.
Boiling water
Forms a syrup in the dish that cooks the dumplings and keeps them moist.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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