Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Apple dumplings are apples wrapped in a stiff batter and steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 fruit filling that cooks through inside the dough wrapper.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough wrapper that holds the apple together.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the dough rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas and lighten the dough.

The step that matters

Wrapping the dough around the apples. The dough must fully enclose each apple without thin spots or gaps, since the steam needs to cook the dough evenly and a torn wrapper can let the dough become soggy or the filling leak.

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.

More apple dumplings recipes

Baked 92Boiled 30Steamed 8 See all 219 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes