Name: Apple Dumplings Baked
Ingredients: 2 oz. butter or dripping; 1 dessertspoonful sugar; apples; beaten egg or milk (for brushing); additional sugar (for sprinkling); 1 clove (optional); grated lemon rind (optional); nutmeg (optional)

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the paste using the same method as before, adding 2 oz. of butter or dripping and 1 dessertspoonful of sugar.
Divide the paste and enclose each apple in a piece.
Roll each dumpling into a round shape.
Brush the tops with beaten egg or milk and sprinkle with sugar.
Place the dumplings on a greased baking sheet.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
Optionally, add a clove, grated lemon rind, or nutmeg in the core of each apple for flavor.

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.

Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, apple, egg, lemon, nutmeg):

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, apple, egg, lemon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.