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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple butter is a thick, sweetened apple spread made by cooking apples with cider and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Apple Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and core the tart apples, then quarter and cut across to shorten the fiber.

Cook

  1. Boil the sweet cider down to about half its original quantity.

  2. Add the prepared apples and brown sugar to the cider.

  3. Stir the mixture well from the bottom and continue boiling.

  4. Cook until the apples and cider form a solid mass that does not separate.

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. Cider + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Tart apples
Provide pectin and acidity, and break down into the thick, spreadable body of the butter.
Sweet cider
Supplies the liquid that is reduced into concentrated apple flavor and sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel notes, and helps thicken the butter as water evaporates.

The step that matters

Stir from the bottom while boiling. Sugar and fruit solids settle and scorch on the hot base of a pan during long cooking, which gives a burnt taste. Stirring from the bottom keeps the mixture moving and evenly heated.

“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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