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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple butter is a thick, sweet spread made by cooking apples in cider until it reduces to a jam-like consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Boil the cider down to half its quantity.

  2. Peel and core the apples.

  3. Add the apples to the boiled cider.

Cook and store

  1. Cook until soft, stirring constantly for 8 to 10 hours.

  2. To test if done, it should adhere to an inverted plate.

  3. Store in stone jars.

  4. Cover with writing paper pressed down on the apple butter.

  5. Cover with thick brown paper tied securely.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cider
Provides the liquid base and concentrated sweetness as it reduces.
Cooking apples
Break down during long cooking to form the thick, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Cook until soft, stirring constantly. Apple butter scorches easily on the bottom of the pan over long cooking. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour, while the slow reduction thickens the mixture.

“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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