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Dessert

Spiced Quince Butter

A butter flavored with quince, apples, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and boiled cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spiced Quince Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Prepare the apples and quinces like marmalade, boiling the apple parings and cores with the quince parings.

  2. Strain and pour over the fruit.

  3. Mash the fruit through a colander.

Make the butter

  1. For every pint of fruit, add ¾ pound of granulated sugar.

  2. For each gallon of butter, add 1 ounce each of ground cloves and ground cinnamon, and ½ gallon of boiled cider.

  3. Boil steadily all day, stirring often to prevent burning.

  4. If it thickens too fast, add a little more boiled cider.

  5. Add the spices 30 minutes before the butter is done.

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. Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

  4. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the main fruit body and pectin that gives the butter its set.
Sour apples
Add natural pectin and tartness that balance the sweetness of the butter.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the butter and helps it thicken as moisture cooks off.
Boiled cider
Adds concentrated apple flavour and sweetness while controlling thickness.

The step that matters

Stirring during the long boil. Fruit butters are thick and high in sugar, so they scorch easily on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring prevents burning and keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Pearfits about as well
  2. Quincethe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

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