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Quince and Apple Butter

A fruit butter made from quince and apple, boiled with cider and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quince and Apple Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Mix the apples and quinces in a large pot.

  2. Add 5 quarts of boiled cider and boil for the entire day.

  3. Cover the parts with water and boil until the gluten is extracted, then strain and add to the fruit mixture.

Finish and jar

  1. Stir in 1 coffee cup of sugar and 2 quarts of boiled cider that has been reduced to a thick syrup.

  2. To test if the butter is done, place a small amount on a plate and invert it; if it adheres, it's ready.

  3. Fill Mason jars with the butter and seal.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Quince + cidertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Coffee + syruptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Their high natural pectin helps the butter thicken and set as it cooks.
Apples
They supply body and pectin, giving the butter its smooth, spreadable structure.
Boiled cider
Its concentrated sweetness and tang deepen the flavor, and reducing it adds thickness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter thicken as water evaporates during long cooking.

The step that matters

Test doneness by inverting a small amount on a plate. As water evaporates, the fruit and sugar concentrate and the butter thickens. Stopping too early leaves it runny and prone to spoiling in jars, while cooking too long makes it stiff.

Swap the quince

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cider, coffee, sugar, syrup. 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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