You will recall, of course, this time last year: the apple tree across the street went bananas and produced a gazillion apples that our neighbors let us pick and eat, MILLIONS of apples. For pie, jam, apple sauce.
This year an April snow storm and cold snap killed off a lot of New York states apple blossoms :(
The crop is a lot smaller, but still pretty abundant at orchards (not at my neighbor's though!).
I have made a lot of apple sauce, because it is shockingly tasty, and turns your everyday oatmeal into something that tastes like apple pie. And the house when you make it? Smells like apple pie!
Anyway, somewhere this week I came across a slow cooker crock pot apple butter recipe. Apple butter is simply extra EXTRA thick apple sauce used as jam on your toast. I see this recipe and I am like "this is soooooo easy, I have to try it!" and I did....goshdarnit, tis perfect! **recipe as I did it below, and conveniently it goes well with beer bread....
Halfway cooked...I was amazed, just simmering all day was breaking it all down and turning it into a jam-like substance...
well, I had to get some glaze work done too, DUH! I ask myself "why do you put yourself in all these pictures?" and I tell myself "well, its my blog, who wants to look at just pictures of APPLES?".
**apple butter, as Gary made it! produced 4 cups (bigger recipe would produce MORE)
6-8 large apples, cored and diced---(I used cortlands...we live next to the town of Cortland)
2 cups sugar
lots of nutmeg, cinnamon, ground cloves
3/4 cup water
Fill crock pot 3/4 full with apples. That was 6 for me, but as the stuff cooked it looked to me like I could have packed some more in there. Oh well! Original recipe calls for peeling apples, but I never do that and it did not seem to matter at all.
Stir into apples the water, sugar and spice, set crock pot on low, cook all day (10-12 hours) and give it the occasional stir.
If late in the day it is still watery looking (mine was NOT, it really looked beautiful and thick) the original recipe says you can remove the cover and turn to high and stir often. Which is basically what you would do with stovetop cooking of apple butter.
Sterilize jars and lids, as you would for jam, then can it! Sooooooooooo easy! The easiest jam you have ever made!
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8 comments:
I see a lot of vegan recipies that use apple sauce for the binder (which might be eggs in non-vegan cooking) so it's good for you to have a lot of it around.
Given an abundance of apples I would probably choose cider over apple butter. Apple butter is not a bad choice, though. My wife's family usually makes a bunch (3 or 4 big copper kettles) every year, but apples were apparently too expensive this year, so not apple butter. We still have a couple dozen pints from last year though, so it is not so bad.
I like apple butter, probably more than apple sauce. I think I will see what I have left for apples and perhaps cook some up. Thanks for the recipe!
OMG I was just wondering how the heck to eat up these apples we got recently at an orchard, and I LOVE apple butter! Thanks!
I make apple butter every other year. What makes this completely nuts is I live in a non-apple producing state so I actually bring a SUITCASE full of apples back from one of my trips to MN! Crazy cat lady apple bootlegger, that's me.
I LOVE FALL!!! Apples, pumpkins... does it get any better?!?
Since I live with Mr. No-Sugar himself, I usually just use some apple juice as a sweetener. What the heck, it works!
Wishing I had an apple orchard...
Gary! Thanks for the apple butter recipe. As fortune would have it - I was actually looking for one for the gads and gads of apples that just landed on my doorstep (figuratively, of course).
Now, no more mind-reading. It's just spooky. :)
I haven't had an apple since June - I'm going into withdrawal! I was all set today to make beer bread and realized the loaf pan was in a box. Which box remains a mystery. So I made do with oatmeal chocolate chip peanut butter cookies to keep B going while I'm away.
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