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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings are apples wrapped in puff pastry, boiled, then topped with sugar and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Preheat the water for boiling.

  2. Pare and core the apples, then place a clove and a little grated lemon peel inside each apple.

  3. Wrap each apple in puff pastry.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the wrapped apples in a net or linen for 1 hour.

  2. Before serving, cut a small piece from the top of each apple.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar and a small piece of butter into each apple.

  4. Replace the pastry top and sprinkle with pounded 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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Baking apples
Provide the fruit that softens during boiling and becomes the filling.
Puff pastry
Wraps each apple and forms a flaky, golden casing around it.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the apple as it melts inside.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and adds to the flavour of the juices.

The step that matters

Wrapping the apples in pastry. The pastry must fully seal around each apple so juices and filling stay inside while boiling. Gaps let water in and leak the filling out.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, lemon, sugar, butter. 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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