Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Apple Dumplings with Sauce

A baked dessert of apples wrapped in dough, served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Baked Apple Dumplings with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel and core the apples.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cut in butter until crumbly, then add milk and vanilla to form a dough.

  3. Roll out the dough and wrap each apple, sealing well.

Bake and serve

  1. Place wrapped apples in a baking dish and pour water over them.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 30-40 minutes until golden.

  3. Serve warm with sauce from the baking dish.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Forms the dough's structure once it sets in the oven.
Butter
Cut into the flour to make the dough crumbly and tender with fat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping it rise and become light.
Apples
Supply the filling that softens and becomes moist as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dough and top brown.

The step that matters

Sealing the dough around each apple. Gaps let the filling leak and the sauce escape during baking, so the dumplings can dry out or collapse. Wrapping snugly keeps the juices and steam inside the dough.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, milk, vanilla, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, vanilla, sauce. 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 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipes