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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple butter is a sweetened, spiced apple puree made by cooking apples with water, cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar, and apple jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 and cook the apples

  1. Wash the apples and remove the cores and decayed spots.

  2. Boil the apples in a tin boiler until tender.

  3. Run the cooked apples through a sieve.

Reduce to butter

  1. Return the apple puree to the boiler with the cooking water and boil for 1 hour until thick.

  2. Add cinnamon, cloves, and brown sugar to taste, along with the apple jelly.

  3. Cook a little longer, then pour into jars while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sour apples
Provide the fruit base, pectin and body that thicken into a spreadable butter.
Apple jelly
Adds concentrated pectin and apple flavor that helps the butter set firmly.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deeper caramel notes as the mixture cooks down.

The step that matters

Thickening the puree. As the puree cooks down, water evaporates and sugars concentrate and darken. Thick, sugary mixtures can scorch on the bottom of a boiler, so the long simmer needs close attention to avoid a burnt taste.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, 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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