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Dessert

Apple Butter

A preserved apple spread made by cooking apples with cider, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and spices until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Apple Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Cover the apples with sweet cider in a preserving kettle.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the mixture all day, stirring constantly to prevent scorching.

  2. When it begins to turn brown, sweeten to taste and add cinnamon, cloves, and spice.

  3. Let it brown thoroughly and pack in jars.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the butter, breaking down into a thick, spreadable pulp as they cook.
Sweet cider
Supplies liquid so the apples can soften evenly before the mixture thickens and browns.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it caramelizes during long cooking, deepens the brown color and flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring during the long cook. Thick fruit mixtures scorch easily on the bottom of the kettle, and scorched sugars taste bitter. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly while the mixture thickens and browns.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cider, sugar, 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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