Name: Apple Butter
Ingredients: good apples (such as Northern Spy, Rhode Island Greening, Tompkins King, or Smokehouse); sweet cider; vinegar (if using overripe apples)

Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apple Butter

Ingredients

good apples (such as Northern Spy, Rhode Island Greening, Tompkins King, or Smokehouse)
sweet cider
vinegar (if using overripe apples)

Directions

Wash and prepare the apples, removing any bad spots.
Cook the apples until soft, then mash them into a sauce.
If using coarse apples, strain the sauce through a colander or wire sieve.
In a pot, combine the apple sauce with sweet cider.
If using overripe apples, add vinegar to taste.
Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring frequently, until it thickens to your desired consistency.

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.

Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,238 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,884 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).