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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple butter is a sweet, spiced apple preserve made by cooking apples with 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 cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Butter

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Wash, core, and cut the apples without peeling them.

  2. Stew the apples in enough water to cover until tender.

  3. Rub the cooked apples through a colander.

Sweeten and cook

  1. For each pint of pulp, add ½ pint of sugar and stir well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a stone crock and cook in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until thick.

  3. Flavor with a little 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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the pulp, pectin and natural sugars that thicken and sweeten the butter.
Sugar
Sweetens the butter and, as it cooks down, helps it thicken and turn glossy and dark.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice flavor to the finished butter.

The step that matters

Cooking in the slow oven until thick. Long, gentle heat evaporates water slowly so the pulp concentrates and thickens without scorching. Stopping too early leaves a runny butter, while too much heat can burn the sugar on the bottom of the crock.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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