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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple Butter is a sweet, spiced apple preserve made by cooking apples in cider until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cider

  1. Fill a very large kettle with cider and boil it until reduced to half the original quantity.

Cook the apples

  1. Add as many apples as can be kept moist by the cider and stir frequently.

  2. When the apples are soft, remove them with a skimmer and place them in a tub.

  3. Continue adding and cooking more apples in the same manner.

  4. Leave the apples to cool in the tub covered with cloths overnight.

Finish and store

  1. The next day, boil the apples and cider until the mixture reaches the consistency of soft marmalade and is a dark brown color.

  2. Twenty minutes to half an hour before removing from heat, add spices to taste.

  3. Once cooled, transfer to 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cider + appletop 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

Cider
Provides the liquid that cooks the apples and, when reduced, concentrates flavour and sweetness.
Apples
Break down into soft pulp that thickens the butter and gives it its body.

The step that matters

Keeping the apples moist while cooking. Apples added in too large a batch can scorch on the bottom of the kettle before the cider covers them. Adding only as many as the cider can keep moist, and stirring often, prevents burning and gives an even, smooth texture.

Swap the apple

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

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

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