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Quince and Apple Butter

A fruit butter made from quince and apple, boiled with sugar to a thick marmalade-like consistency.

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

Prepare the fruit

  1. Tie the cores and peelings of the quinces in a thin cloth.

  2. In a porcelain-lined kettle, combine quinces and cores with enough cold water to cover them.

  3. Boil gently until the quinces begin to soften.

  4. Add the apples to the quinces.

Cook to a butter

  1. Continue boiling until the mixture becomes a pulp.

  2. Stir in the sugar.

  3. Boil until the mixture reaches the consistency of thick marmalade, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  4. Cool the butter.

  5. Store it as directed for pickles and sauces.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Quinces
Provide the pectin and tart flavour that give the butter its set and fragrance.
Sour apples
Add body and pectin to the pulp, helping it thicken as it cooks down.
Sugar
Sweetens the butter and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken to a spreadable texture.

The step that matters

Stirring while boiling down to marmalade consistency. Thick fruit mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the pan once sugar is added and water evaporates. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burning, which would taint the flavour.

Swap the quince

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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