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Dessert

Apple Butter

Apple butter is a thick, sweetened apple preserve made by boiling cider and apples until reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 the kettle

  1. Clean a large brass kettle with vinegar and salt.

  2. Dry the kettle with a fine cloth.

Cook the cider

  1. Fill the kettle with new cider that has not begun to ferment.

  2. As the cider begins to boil, skim it well.

  3. Continue to skim whenever additional cider is added.

  4. Pare, quarter, and core the sweet apples, using 1 bushel for every barrel of cider.

  5. Dip out enough cider to add the apples.

  6. Continue boiling until all cider is added.

  7. Once the apples are in, reduce the heat.

  8. Stir constantly until only about 10 gallons remain.

  9. Use a long stirring board to keep your distance from the heat while stirring to prevent burning.

Jar and seal

  1. While hot, pour the apple butter into stone jars.

  2. Once cooled, cut white paper to fit the jars.

  3. Wet the paper with whiskey.

  4. Place the paper on the butter.

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

Sweet apples
Break down into pulp that thickens the butter and gives it its body.
New cider
Cooks down into a concentrated, sweet-tart liquid that becomes the butter's flavor and body.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until only about 10 gallons remain. Sugars in the reduced cider and apple pulp scorch easily on the hot metal base, leaving burnt flavor. Constant stirring keeps the mixture moving and spreads heat evenly as it thickens.

“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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