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Dessert

Peach Butter

A sweet preserve made by cooking peaches with sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Peach Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peaches

  1. Cook the peaches alone until they become soft.

Sweeten and spice

  1. Add half of the sugar and stir for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the remaining sugar and stir for 1 hour.

  3. Season with cloves and cinnamon.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Peaches
Provide the main body, moisture and fruit flavor, cooking down into a soft purée.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks, helps thicken the fruit into a spreadable butter.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that complements the peaches.
Ground cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma; only a small amount is needed.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar in two portions while stirring. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and thickens the mixture as it cooks down. Once it becomes thick, it can stick to the bottom of the pan and scorch, so stirring steadily through the long cook keeps the butter smooth and evenly coloured.

Swap the peach

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

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

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