Name: Apple Butter with Cider
Ingredients: fresh cider; cooking apples; ground allspice; ground cinnamon

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Butter with Cider

Ingredients

fresh cider
cooking apples
ground allspice
ground cinnamon

Directions

Boil fresh cider down to about one-third of its original quantity.
Prepare cooking apples by peeling, coring, and cutting them into pieces.
Add the apple pieces to the boiled cider and cook until they begin to sink.
Stir constantly to prevent sticking and cook until reduced to a thick pulp.
A few minutes before finishing, add a little ground allspice and cinnamon.

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.

Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cider + appletop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,238 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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).