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Dessert

Apple Butter, No. 2

Apple butter is a thick, sweetened apple spread made by cooking apples in cider and sugar with spices.

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, No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Cook the apples thoroughly in the cider until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a colander to remove skins.

Cook down

  1. Return the apple mixture to the fire and add the sugar.

  2. Cook for several hours, stirring constantly.

  3. One hour before it is done, add ground cinnamon, cloves, and allspice to taste.

  4. Cook until quite thick.

Jar

  1. When done, pour into stone jars and 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. Clove + allspicetop 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. Apple + cidertop 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

Good pippins (apples)
Break down into a soft pulp that forms the body of the butter.
Sweet fresh cider
Cooks the apples until tender and adds liquid that reduces into a thick spread.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the mixture thickens, helps give the butter its glossy, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Stirring during the long cook. Sugar-rich apple mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the pot as water evaporates and sugar concentrates, so constant stirring over several hours prevents burning and uneven thickening.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Applethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Quincefits about as well

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