Where All The Good Apples End up...

My boyfriend's favorite thing in the world is apple sauce. 4 toasts with a generous helping of apple sauce on top of each slice are part of his daily breakfast (I approximate this is how he enjoys breakfast 300/365.25 days a year). This roughly translates to 24 oz of apple sauce every week and a half. Lucky for him, I enjoys my early fall apple picking trips and making apple sauce and apple butter (and other apple related things). Apple sauce is basically a cooked apple puree, and the apple butter is the thickened jam version. I've always thought apple butter is a funny name for it as there's no butter. That is, until I've tried it. It's just so rich and velvety in your mouth!

Apple sauce is relatively easy to make. When made with the skin on, the resulting sauce would be a nice pink. The apple butter is a much meaner beast to tackle. I would suggest that care is to be taken so that there won't be an apple explosion in your kitchen, resulting in harm of your kitchen or person. The first time that I've made apple butter, I ended up with apple butter on the counter, backsplash, floor the ceiling and myself. (Should've wore protective long sleeves... Now I have a burn mark to remember the day.) Please don't let this discourage you from trying to make your own apple butter. It is delicious!

Apple Sauce and Apple Butter

6 lbs of Macintosh apple
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 cup light brown sugar
pinch salt
zest and juice of 1 lemon

1. Wash the apples with vinegar and baking soda.
2. Cut the apples. There’s no need to peel or core them. The skin and core contains the highest level of pectin and will help the sauce achieve the thickens of jam. However, if you do not have a food strainer/mill then only use the flesh of the apple.

The easiest way to cut apples is to cut them in to quarters. However, I find that sometimes undesired parts of the apple gets through the food strainer, adding unnecessary texture to my apple sauce/butter. Here's my game plan to cut my apples. Turn the knife to remove the stringy part on the bottom of the apple. Cut 4 times around the core to remove flesh from core. Cut the core into 3 pieces, while keeping the core intact. The reason that I cut the core into smaller slice is that they take longer to soften then the flesh parts so they require to be smaller if you wish everything to soften around the same time. If this seems crazy and too time consuming... cutting in to quarters is the way to go!

3. Put all the cup apples in a pot and add about 2 cups of water to it. Cover and cook on medium-high heat until boil. Turn down the heat and simmer until everything has softened. Stir occasionally.
4. Place the food mill over a large pot or bowl, and spoon the cooked apple into it. I use the filter with the smallest holes. Process apple mixture in batches. The resulting puree is apple sauce! If this is what you wish for stop reading! If not, brace yourself and move on to make apple butter.

5. Rinse out the large pot and return the apple puree to the pot. Add in the vinegar, sugar, lemon juice and zest. Turn heat down to low and cook until the puree turns brown and thickens. This will take a few hours. Stir every few minutes to avoid a crust to develop on the bottom of the pot. Be super careful at this stage as the apple puree will splatter as you heat it. Stirring will cut down the splattering; however, remember to put on long sleeves and gloves to avoid the hot sauce burning your skin. (I suggest to turn the heat down if there is too much splattering. If you insist on the heating level, wear a face mask!) This process would take a few hours. Check the puree has reached the consistency of jam by doing the spoon test. Then tada! Apple butter!

The spoon test: put a metal spoons in the freezer. Once you think the puree has reached the consistency of jam, dip the spoon in the jam. Lift and see how the jam runs off the spoon. If the jam runs off as a "sheet" then it's ready!

6. Can the hot apple butter. These will last for a year at room temperature!