Skip to main content
Dessert

Old Fashioned Fried Turnovers

A pastry filled with sweetened apple sauce, baked in a dough made with sour milk, cream, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Fried Turnovers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, cream, baking soda, egg, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft.

  3. Roll out the dough to the size of a saucer.

Fill and fry

  1. Fill each round with apple filling and pinch the edges to seal.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan until hot.

  3. Fry the turnovers quickly, turning often to maintain shape.

  4. Drain excess fat on a separate plate.

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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the dough rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the dough.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and body.
Apple filling
Provides moisture, sweetness and spice inside the turnover.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the crust a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Fry the turnovers quickly, turning often. Hot fat seals the dough quickly, so the crust sets and browns before the filling leaks out. Frying too slowly or at low heat lets fat soak in, making the turnovers greasy and likely to burst open.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, egg, flour, cider, sauce, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, flour, cider, sauce, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes