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Dessert

Peach Butter

Peach Butter is a preserve made by cooking peeled, pitted peaches with sugar until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, stone, and weigh the peaches.

Cook the butter

  1. Heat the peaches slowly in a pot, stirring often.

  2. Once hot, boil quickly for one hour or until soft, stirring continuously.

  3. Add 3 pounds of sugar for every 4 pounds of fruit.

  4. Cook until smooth and thick, at least one hour longer, stirring constantly.

  5. Transfer the mixture into 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. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit base, with natural pectin and sugars that thicken and flavour the butter as it cooks down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, by concentrating the fruit, helps the butter thicken and keep well.

The step that matters

Cook until smooth and thick, stirring constantly. Sugar-rich fruit scorches easily on the bottom of the pot, and the mixture thickens as water evaporates. Constant stirring prevents burning and keeps the texture smooth.

“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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