Crock Pot Apple Butter

Living in upstate New York for so many years… Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. Cool crisp days… fabulous colors on the trees.. the rustle of leaves… the smell of those first fires in the fireplace… and apples…. apples galore. Apple pies, applesauce, apple crisp and apple butter.. the list goes on and on.

Living so close to the Vermont border, every Fall my son and I would make a day trip to Vermont. We’d stop at farm stands… there were pumpkins, and apples… apple cider … and we’d always get apple butter. I never knew just how easy it was to make apple butter… and the house smells fabulous while it cooks.

Apple Butter has a really misleading name… it’s not butter as we know it.. it doesn’t contain butter… in fact it is a fat free food… it’s wonderful on biscuits or toast!

Okay.. back to the easy part.. it really is easy.. not quick.. in fact it takes a long time.. but… it practically makes it by itself… now you can’t beat that!

TIPS

The dilemma is always which apples to use… and as with so many other things.. the answer is personal taste. Some like apples crisp and tart… others like them juicy and sweet.

I like to use Golden Delicious apples for this.. they are extremely juicy and tend to be sweet. If you want to balance the sweetness a bit.. use a few Granny Smith apples too… I didn’t but certainly you can experiment. You can also use any other variety of apple you like, Empires are also good for cooking with.

I used 8 large Golden Delicious.. the yield is what you see in the picture. I didn’t want to fool with canning… and there is just two of us.. so this was more than enough. It was easy enough to do again, when we run out. If you want more, just double the recipe.

Peel, core and chop the apples finely… it will help cook them down faster.

I listed ground cloves as optional… I leave it out… Warren doesn’t care for cloves… it adds a bit of spice if you do add it in.

I highly recommend you start out on high .. and then reduce it to low and cook until it cooks down to a really thick applesauce consistency. Since I was home when I made this… I stirred it periodically.

Try this really easy way to make apple butter!







Recipe: Crock Pot Apple Butter

All you need:

8 large Golden Delicious Apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves (optional)
Dash of salt

All you need to do:

Put all the ingredients into a crock pot. Mix well.

Cook on high for about 3 hours then reduced it to low for about 8 hours … stir periodically.

Use an immersion blender to blend it. You can mash it manually with a masher.

Then turned it back up to high with the lid off for the last hour… or until it’s the consistency you want.

Put into a clean jar or covered dish and refrigerate.