Name: Steamed Apple Dumplings
Ingredients: rich biscuit dough; apples; sweetened cream

Why it works: Biscuit and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,235 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Steamed Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

rich biscuit dough
apples
sweetened cream

Directions

Prepare a rich biscuit dough.
Peel and split each apple.
Wrap each apple in the dough.
Steam until the apple is tender in the center.
Serve with sweetened cream.

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.

Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,235 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Biscuit + appletop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,089 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).