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Dessert

Apple Dumpling

A boiled pastry filled with sliced apples, lemon, and spices, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry

  1. Boil the potatoes until soft, then mash them until smooth.

  2. While the mash is hot, mix in the butter, salt, and cold water.

  3. Knead in the flour until a dough forms.

  4. Roll out the pastry with a rolling pin until tender, adding flour if necessary.

Fill and wrap

  1. Scald a cloth and flour it, then lay it over a bowl.

  2. Slice the apples and lemon.

  3. Sprinkle the sliced fruit with cinnamon, cloves, and sugar.

  4. Roll the apple mixture in the pastry.

  5. Wrap the pastry in the cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the wrapped dumpling for at least 2 hours.

  2. Serve with 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Mashed into the dough, they add moisture and a tender, pliable texture.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the pastry and gives it richness.
Flour
Forms the dough's structure once kneaded, giving the pastry its body.
Apples
Supply the bulk of the filling, with tartness and moisture that cook down inside the pastry.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Rolling out the pastry. Adding too much flour while rolling makes the dough dry and tough, while too little makes it stick. Rolling gently keeps the potato-based dough tender so it holds the filling without tearing.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, flour, apple, lemon, cinnamon, 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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