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Dessert

Oxford Dumplings

A sweet dumpling made with currants, suet, breadcrumbs, candied peel, nutmeg, sugar, brandy, egg, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Oxford Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine currants, suet, breadcrumbs, candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Add brandy and egg, mixing until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into small dumplings, about the size of a hen's egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each dumpling in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the dumplings in hot lard or dripping until golden brown.

  3. Serve with wine sauce.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the dumplings moist and rich as they cook.
Breadcrumbs
Give the mixture body and form a crisp coating when fried.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps the coating adhere.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the dumplings.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard or dripping. Fat that is hot enough browns the breadcrumb coating quickly and seals the outside, while fat that is too cool lets the dumplings soak up grease and turn heavy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, orange, nutmeg, sugar, brandy, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, orange, nutmeg, sugar, brandy, egg. 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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