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Dessert

Apple Dumplings

Steamed dumplings made with flour batter and cooked apples, served with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the apples.

  2. Butter 6 cups well.

Assemble and steam

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and enough milk to create a thick batter.

  2. Place a spoonful of batter in each cup, add the prepared apples, and cover with more batter.

  3. Steam until the apples are thoroughly cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 bulk of the batter that encloses and cooks around the apples.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, lifting the batter so the dumplings turn light rather than dense.
Good cooking apples
Provide the filling, softening as they cook and turning tender and sweet-tart.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a thick batter that holds together while steaming.

The step that matters

Steam until the apples are thoroughly cooked. The batter sets quickly from the outside while the apple core is still firm. Cooking long enough lets the apple soften fully, and the batter must set without becoming gummy or dense.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, cream. 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 →

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