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Dessert

Peach Butter

A sweet preserve made by cooking peaches with sugar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Peach Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Pare the peaches and remove the stones.

  2. Place the peaches in a kettle with enough water to cover them.

  3. Boil the peaches until soft, then strain through a colander.

Make the butter

  1. For each quart of pulp, add 1½ pounds of granulated sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture very slowly for one hour, stirring often to prevent burning.

  3. Season the finished butter slightly with cloves, allspice, and 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Peach + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe peaches
Provide the fruit pulp that cooks down into the butter's body and flavor.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the pulp as its water cooks off.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture very slowly for one hour, stirring often. Sugar-rich fruit scorches easily on the bottom of the pan. Slow simmering and frequent stirring prevent burning and let moisture evaporate evenly, so the butter thickens smoothly.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, allspice, 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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