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Dessert

Apple Dumpling

Apple dumpling is a pastry filled with apples, sugar, butter, and optional spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Dumpling

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples and dough

  1. Wash, peel, and core the apples.

  2. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick and cut into squares large enough to cover each apple.

  3. Brush the squares of dough with egg wash.

Fill and wrap

  1. Place an apple in the center of each square, fill the core with sugar, and top with a piece of butter.

  2. Flavor with cinnamon, nutmeg, or lemon juice if desired.

  3. Fold the corners of the dough over the apple to form a ball and place it folded side down in a pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

  2. Serve with sweetened whipped cream or cream 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apples
Hold their shape and turn tender and sweet as they bake inside the pastry.
Puff pastry or pie dough
Forms a flaky, golden wrapper that holds the filling while the dish bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps caramelize the apple juices in the core.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, melting into the apple and browning the pastry.

The step that matters

Folding the dough around the apple. Dough that is torn or not sealed at the corners lets sugary juices leak out during baking, leaving the pastry dry and the filling thin. Snug, sealed folds keep the juices inside to steam and soften the apple.

“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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