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Dainty Dumplings

A light dumpling made with egg, butter, flour, baking powder, salt, and cracker crumbs, cooked in soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Dainty Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg until light, then add melted butter and salt.

  2. Mix baking powder and flour together, then add to the egg mixture.

  3. Incorporate enough finely rolled cracker crumbs to form a dough that can be rolled into balls.

Cook

  1. Drop the balls into soup and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of the dumplings.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Egg
Binds the dough and gives the dumplings structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the dumplings puff and stay light.
Flour
Provides starch that gives the dumplings body and holds their shape.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dough and softens its texture.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and bulk the dough so it can be rolled into balls.

The step that matters

Drop the balls into soup and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes. Dumplings cooked in simmering liquid must be covered and cooked through; larger dumplings need the longer time, or the centers stay raw and dense.

“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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