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Dessert

Garfield Butter

A fruit butter made from plums and peaches, sweetened with sugar and preserved in sterilized containers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Garfield Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare, pit, and slice the peaches.

  2. Remove pits from freestone plums.

  3. Cook peaches and plums together slowly until soft.

  4. Rub the mixture through a colander or coarse sieve.

Make the butter

  1. Add 3/4 measure of sugar to each measure of pulp.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring often until thickened.

  3. Pack hot into sterilized containers and cover with hot paraffin.

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. Plum + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the main fruit body and natural pectin that helps the butter thicken as it cooks.
Peaches
Add soft pulp and mild sweetness that give the butter its smooth, spreadable body.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it cooks down, helps set the butter into a thick spread.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, stirring often until thickened. Sugar and fruit pulp thicken as water evaporates and pectin sets on cooling. Cooking too fast or without stirring can scorch the sugar and fruit, leaving a burnt taste and uneven texture.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar. 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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