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Dessert

Apple Butter From Dried Apples

Apple butter made by boiling dried apples and pumpkin with sugar, syrup, cider, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Butter From Dried Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried apples and pumpkin in water to cover for 12 hours.

Cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the soaked apples, pumpkin, glucose, boiled cider, golden syrup, New Orleans sugar, gelatine, and mixed spice.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour, stirring constantly.

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 + grapetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  3. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Grape + cidertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  5. Pumpkin + grapetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together341 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide the bulk and pectin-rich body that thickens the butter as it cooks down.
Dried pumpkin
Adds moisture and body, helping the mixture cook into a thick, spreadable texture.
New orleans sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the mixture thicken and darken as it cooks.
Gelatine
Helps the cooked mixture set into a firmer, sliceable spread.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 1 hour, stirring constantly. Sugar-rich mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the pot, and constant stirring prevents burning. A gentle boil lets water evaporate slowly so the butter thickens evenly without catching.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, grape, cider, syrup, 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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