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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

A dessert of apples wrapped in dough, baked or boiled, served with nutmeg, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pare and core the apples, then fill the cavities with quince marmalade.

  3. Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick.

Assemble and cook

  1. Mold a piece of dough over each apple.

  2. Wrap each apple in a cloth and boil separately, or brush with egg whites and bake.

Serve

  1. Serve with grated nutmeg, sifted sugar, and fresh butter in separate saucers.

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 + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Quince + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Baking apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns sweet-tart as it cooks inside the dough.
Flour
Forms the dough structure that wraps and holds each apple together during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, served fresh alongside the dumplings for spreading.
Egg whites
Brushed on the dough to promote browning and a glossy, set crust when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, served sifted over the dumplings to balance the tart fruit.

The step that matters

Wrapping the dough over each apple. Dough must be rolled evenly and sealed fully around the apple; thin or gapped spots tear or leak during baking or boiling, letting filling escape and the pastry dry out.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, flour, egg, nutmeg, 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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