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Apple, Peach and Other Fruit Butters— How to Make

A spread made by cooking apples with cider and sugar until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider 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, Peach and Other Fruit Butters— How to Make

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Boil down the cider to 1½ barrels.

Cook the butter

  1. Place the apples in a copper kettle.

  2. Pour enough boiled cider over the apples to nearly cover them.

  3. Heat the kettle and as the cider boils away, add more until all is used and the mixture reaches a proper 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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the butter, breaking down into a soft, spreadable pulp as they cook.
Cider
Supplies liquid and sugars that concentrate as it boils, sweetening and thickening the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the boiled cider gradually as it boils away. Cider reduces as it cooks, so the mixture can scorch on the bottom of the kettle if it runs dry. Adding more keeps enough liquid present while the apples soften and the sugars concentrate into a thick, even butter.

“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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