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Apple Dumplings, Boiled

Boiled dumplings made of suet crust paste filled with apples, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dumplings

  1. Pare and core the apples, then fill the cavities with sugar and add a clove to each apple.

  2. Roll out the suet crust paste and cut rounds large enough to cover the apples.

  3. Place one apple on each round of paste, wet the edges slightly, and press them gently to seal completely.

  4. Tie each dumpling in the corner of a well-floured pudding cloth.

Boil

  1. Put the dumplings into boiling water and boil gently for 40 to 50 minutes.

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

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

  3. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Suet crust paste
Forms the pastry wrapper that holds the apples and cooks into a tender, steamed crust.
Apples
Provide the filling, softening as they cook and releasing moisture and sweetness into the dumpling.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the apples and draws some juice out of them, forming a syrup inside the dumpling.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste around each apple. If the edges are not wetted and pressed firmly, gaps can open during boiling, letting water enter and sugary juice escape, so the dumpling may fall apart.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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