Saturday, August 18, 2012

Apple Butter

Perhaps it is a bit early for such fall classics, but the inn that my Husband and I stayed at for the second part of our honeymoon served amazing apple butter (along with other goodies) each morning for breakfast.  I recently discovered that you can make apple butter pretty easily using a slow cooker.  With a bit of time to kill before we continued working on our cinnamon bread {Pioneer Woman recipe link}, I figured I would prep my first batch of apple butter using my trusty crock pot.  The amounts look small, but I didn't want to waste a bunch of apples on my first attempt.  Also, I happened to have three apples in the fridge so, three apples it was.

~ 3 apples (I used gala), peeled, cored, and chopped
~ 3/4 cup of white sugar (The other recipes called for A LOT of sugar.  I used far less, even considering that I was scaling down the actual amount I was making.  I used white sugar because we didn't have any brown sugar on hand.  Weird- I know.  Anyhow, I would like to experiment with sugar amounts in future batches.)
~ 1 tsp. cinnamon
~ 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
~ 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
~ 1/4 tsp. allspice
~ 1/4 cup of water
~ 1 individual container of apple sauce (They were giving them out as samples at our Whole Foods yesterday so I figured I would toss it in there.)



I mixed the spices together and then put the apples, spices, water, and apple sauce in my slow cooker.  I left it on high for 1.5 hours.  After an hour and a half, I gave it a good stir and reduced the heat to low.  I continued to stir it occasionally for the next 5 hours until it started to look like really chunky apple sauce.  I broke up the large chunks with a masher until there were just some smaller chunks here and there.  Then, I left the cover off and cooked it for another 2 hours.  To get an even smoother consistency, I poured it all in my blender and whirled it up!  (Or, one could use a hand-held immersion blender.)  I then poured it in an old (but clean) jelly jar and popped it in the fridge.


Overall, it was very easy and though it took awhile the hands-on time was minimal.  (Silly me though- I started the process at 4:30 p.m.  This really didn't jive with my trying to go to bed early to prepare myself for a Monday through Friday 4:30 a.m. wake-up during the school year.)  Next time, I think I will experiment with the sweetener or use another fruit like blueberries.  Yum!!



Enjoy!  

 

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