The optimum cooking conditions for apple compote prepared by vacuum cooking were determined by using the random centroid optimization (RCO) method. The conditions for ordinary and vacuum cooking were selected with reference to five popular cooking books : the sugar concentration of the syrup was 20% and heating was for 30 min at 98°C. The apple compote made by vacuum cooking was preferred by a paired comparison test, so the optimum conditions for vacuum cooking were investigated by an RCO search regarding the two factors of the sugar concentration in the syrup and the heating time at 98°C. The optimum sugar concentration in the syrup and the heating time were defined as 37% and 32 min, respectively, from the overall preference scores.