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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple butter is a sweet, thick spread made by cooking apples with cider, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, quarter, and core the apples.

  2. Stew the apples in water until soft, then pass through a sieve.

  3. Boil the cider down to 3 gallons.

Cook

  1. On the same day, combine the boiled cider and sifted apples, and cook all day while stirring continuously.

  2. One hour before finishing, add the coffee sugar and ground 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. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Cider + cinnamontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

Apples
Provide the bulk and pectin that give the butter its thick, spreadable body.
Cider
Supplies liquid and tartness, and boiling it down concentrates its sweetness and flavor.
Coffee sugar
Adds sweetness and deepens the color as the mixture cooks down slowly.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring continuously during the long cook. A thick, sugar-rich mixture sticks and scorches on the bottom of the pot as water evaporates. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, prevents burnt flavor, and lets the butter thicken gradually.

“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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