Apple Goodness

I have a love/hate relationship with our apple tree. Last year we had NO apples. This year we had tons of huge red/green apples. I love the fresh fruit we have from the trees. I hate what I have to do to the apples to "put them up". But the end result is SOOOOO good.

Last Sunday I made apple butter. Apple butter is not butter. It's more of a delicious spread similar to jam. Awesome on pancackes and toast.

I washed and cored about 30ish apples. Leave the skins on. It has something to do with the pectin. Add about 4 cups of apple juice. I ended up with about 6 quarts of apples. Cook on low for 10-18 hours. Mine were in for about 15 hours. Warning: they will start to look all brown and gross. This is OK!

Remove the apples and put them through a food mill to remove the skins. I don't have a food mill (and I curse that fact every time I make apple butter) so I put them through a fine sieve. The goal is to push all of the apple mush through leaving the skins behind. Throw the skins away or compost them.

Measure the remainder of the "sauce". For every 2 cups add 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves. I had 14 cups of sauce so I added 7 cups of sugar. That equals almost an entire 4 lb. bag. Stir well. Cook on high for 6-7 hours stirring every 2 hours. After 3 hours remove the lid in order to let some of the excess liquid to evaporate.

I wish blogger had smell-o-vision. I can't begin to describe how good my house smelled.

Once it was finished I put the butter in sterilized mason jars. Process in a canner for 15 minutes and there you go! Fresh apple butter for at least a year! Mine yielded 3 pints and 9 half-pints.