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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Steamed dumplings made of apples wrapped in a stiff batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Pare and core the apples, leaving them whole.

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, cream of tartar, salt, and baking soda.

  3. Add enough water to form a stiff batter.

Wrap the apples

  1. Take a spoonful of the dough and roll it out to cover an apple.

  2. Wrap the dough around the apple and place it on a buttered plate.

  3. Repeat with the remaining apples.

Steam

  1. Set the plate in a steamer and steam for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the apples.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Apples
Provide the filling and fruit flavor that the dough encloses while steaming.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough structure that wraps and holds each apple together.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda to lighten it.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that leavens the dough.

The step that matters

Wrap the dough around the apple. The dough must fully enclose the apple, or steam can escape and the exposed fruit may cook unevenly and dry out. The dough should cover the apple evenly so it holds together during steaming.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, 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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