Name: Apple Butter
Ingredients: Cooking apples; New clear cider; Finely powdered allspice

Why it works: Apple and cider 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

Cooking apples
New clear cider
Finely powdered allspice

Directions

Pare, quarter, and core the cooking apples.
Boil down the cider in a large pan until reduced by half.
Add the apples to the cider and stir continuously.
Boil until the mixture thickens to the consistency of hasty pudding.
Stir in the finely powdered allspice.
Transfer the butter into pots for preservation.

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.

Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,238 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Apple + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together998 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Cider + allspicetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together873 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).