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Dessert

Apple Dumpling

A dumpling made from mashed potatoes and flour, filled with apples, boiled, served with butter and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Make the dough

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes while hot.

  2. Mix the mashed potatoes with flour and salt.

  3. Cut in the butter and mix into a paste with cold water.

  4. Flour the board and roll out the dough thick in the middle and thin at the edges.

Fill and boil

  1. Fill the dough with pared and quartered apples.

  2. Boil the dumplings for three hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with butter and syrup or a sauce.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Potatoes
Adds starch and moisture, keeping the dough tender and easy to roll.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and holds the filling.
Butter
Coats flour particles to add fat, which makes the dough tender and rich.
Apples
Provide the filling, adding tartness and fruity flavor as they cook inside the dough.

The step that matters

Sealing the dough around the apples. Any gap lets filling and water in during the long boil, so the dumpling can break apart or turn soggy. Pinch the seams firmly and keep the water at a steady simmer.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, butter. 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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