Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Boiled Apple-dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Pare and core the apples.
Add about 3 inches of water to a pot or fill a pot with boiling water for steaming.
Mix the flour and butter or lard.
Add salt and baking powder to the mixture.
Moisten with enough milk to make a soft dough that can be easily rolled out.
Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick.
Cut the dough into circles the size of a breakfast plate.
Fill and wrap
Place 1 apple in the center of each dough circle.
Fill the core with sugar and a little cinnamon.
Fold the dough over the apple.
Tie each dumpling in a floured cloth.
Leave room for expansion.
Cook and serve
Boil the dumplings in a kettle of boiling water for 30 minutes.
Steam the dumplings on a tin plate for 40 minutes.
Serve hot with Hard Sauce.
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.
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 moistened and rolled, holding the apple inside.
- Butter or lard
- Adds fat that tenderises the dough and keeps it from becoming tough.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lifts the dough so the dumplings rise and become light.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour so the dough becomes soft and easy to roll out.
- Apples
- Provide the fruit filling, which softens and becomes tender as the dumpling cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apple filling and helps it caramelise slightly in the core.
The step that matters
Leave room for expansion. Baking powder releases gas and the dough swells as it cooks. If the cloth or dough is packed too tightly, the dumpling can burst or turn heavy, so space must be left around each one.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, sugar, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, sugar, cinnamon. 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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