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Dessert

Sugar Apple Butter

A spread made from stewed apples, elderberries, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sugar Apple Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Stew the elderberries and drain off the juice.

Cook and strain

  1. Cook the apples in the elderberry juice until well done.

  2. Squeeze the mixture through a fine mesh bag.

Finish

  1. Add the sugar to the apple mixture and boil until the right consistency.

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

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

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

Elderberries
Provide flavour, colour and juice that cooks the apples and adds tartness.
Tart cooking apples
Break down into pulp that gives the butter its thick, spreadable body.
Soft white sugar
Sweetens the butter and, when boiled down, thickens it to a spreadable consistency.

The step that matters

Boil until the right consistency. Sugar is added to the strained pulp and the mixture must be cooked long enough for water to evaporate. Too little cooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can scorch the sugars and make it stiff.

“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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