Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Fashionable Apple Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Remove the cores from the apples without cutting them in half.
Fill the cavities with orange or lemon marmalade.
Enclose the apples in a thinly rolled pie crust.
Wrap and cook
Wrap the apples in small cloths and tie them securely.
Boil the wrapped apples for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the type of apples used.
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.
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Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Large apples
- Form the soft, tender filling that the crust encloses and the dish is built around.
- Orange or lemon marmalade
- Adds sweetness and citrus aroma to the apple cavity as it cooks.
- Pie crust
- Encloses the apple and forms a pastry wrapper that holds the filling during cooking.
The step that matters
Boiling time. Apples differ in firmness and soften at different rates. Too short a boil leaves the apple and pastry undercooked, while too long can make the apple collapse and the crust soggy.
“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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