Name: Apple Dumpling
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 2 tablespoons baking powder; 2 tablespoons lard or butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; Water (as needed); Apples (sliced thin)

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Dumpling

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.

Prepare the dough

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, lard or butter, and salt.
Add enough water to form a soft dough that can be rolled out.

Assemble and bake

Roll out the dough and slice apples thin.
Wrap the apples in the dough to form either one large dumpling or several small ones.
Place the dumplings in a baking dish and bake until golden.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the dough that encloses the apples.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and becomes lighter.
Lard or butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and helps it brown.
Apples: Provide the fruit filling, becoming soft and sweet as they bake inside the dough.