Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Butter

A thick, spiced preserve made by cooking apples in cider until very thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cider

  1. Boil the cider rapidly until reduced to 2 gallons.

Cook the apples

  1. Peel, quarter, and core the apples.

  2. Add half a peck of apples to the boiled cider.

  3. Cook the apples until tender.

  4. Continue adding more apples until the mixture is thick.

  5. In a separate kettle, boil additional apples in some boiled cider until they begin to break.

  6. Skim the softened apples.

  7. Add the skimmed apples to the apple butter.

Finish and store

  1. Stir constantly with a wooden scraper while boiling all day until very thick.

  2. Add spices 30 minutes before removing from heat.

  3. Transfer to small stone jars.

  4. Cover tightly.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cider + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet cider
Provides the liquid that is boiled down to concentrate flavor and form the base of the butter.
Sweet apples
Break down during long cooking to supply the thick, spreadable body and fruit flavor.
Cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and mace
Add warm aromatic flavor that deepens during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly while boiling all day. Thick cider-and-apple mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the kettle. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps sugars from burning as the mixture reduces.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, apple, cinnamon, allspice, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, apple, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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.

More apple butter recipes

Pudding 3 See all 82 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes