Making Apple butter

In our move to a new location and settling in,  I did not make any apple butter.
Last week I baked apple muffins and ML sadly informed me that there was no apple butter to spread on hers.
I told her if she picked up 10 lbs of cheap apples I would make a batch.

Start with 10 lbs apples and 1 lb of cranberries.





ML used a slicer corer to cut up the apples. We leave the skins on as the pectin is mostly in the apple skin.



The cut apples and the cranberries are put in a big pot with a little water.




They are cooked down until they are mushy. Then I use the food mill attachment on my stand mixer to separate the skins from the good stuff.
In the pot on the left are the cooked apples. The center part collects the apple "pulp". To the right  the apple skins go into our compost bowl.





The apple sauce goes on the stove and is slowly simmered for a long time. I add spices and sugar at this point. Notice the pinkish color.




After simmering most of the day the apple butter is thick and brown. The spoon stands up in it!!




Next we "can" it in glass pint jars. I ladle the hot apple butter into the jars.




ML helps as there are never enough hands on deck when canning. After adding lids and bands she lowers the jar into the waterbath.




Apple butter can be canned in a boiling water bath as opposed to a pressure cooker. The acidity of the apples and the sugar content are why you can use a  waterbath. Both of those keep microbes at bay so one does not need the more severe pressure cooker to render the food safe.



When all was done we had 7 pints of apple butter. YUM!

Interesting! I never made apple butter and was going to ask about the waterbath vs pressure canning. Thanks for anticipating the question.

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Never heard the term apple butter before. Beyond consistency differences, how does it differ from just a quick apple puree/ mashed apples? More intense flavour?

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Never heard the term apple butter before. Beyond consistency differences, how does it differ from just a quick apple puree/ mashed apples? More intense flavour?

Apple puree is called able sauce in the US. It is usually just apples and a little sugar. It is loose and mushy and wet.

Apple butter has more sugar and lots of spices. I put in nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon. This is my nutmeg grater and a mortar and pestle to grind the allspice. I use pre-ground cinnamon. I have never found a way to hand mill cinnamon sticks so I use pre-ground.



I added about 3 pounds (1.4 kg) of sugar. Then apple butter is slowly cooked until much thicker than apple sauce. It becomes a spread and can be spread on toast or muffins in my wife's case.

Cooking it until thick concentrates the flavors and it is much tastier than apple sauce. But apple butter is never eaten alone like apple sauce. It is always spread onto a baked good.

I have used it as a coating for a pork roast. Spread it on and it caramelizes during the roasting. Quite good.

Phil

Interesting! I never made apple butter and was going to ask about the waterbath vs pressure canning. Thanks for anticipating the question.

I started canning by making tomato sauce. Waterbath canning. Due to the acidity of plum tomatoes you could do this.
Sometime in the last 15 years the USDA changed the rules and recommend a pressure cooker. Apparently tomatoes have been bred to have a lower acid content as this is what the American palate prefers.

I use the Ball Bluebook. Ball makes canning supplies and the Bluebook is a canner's bible. They first suggested adding lemon juice or commercial citric acid to tomatoes and still use a waterbath. But they changed it to a pressure cooker eventually.

I had graduated from tomato sauce to spaghetti sauce by then. The addition of spices, onions, peppers and garlic required pressure canning. I have a big ol' antique pressure cooker - the type with the rocking weight to control pressure. I wonder if one could use an Insta-pot to can. Though it would not hold a lot of jars.

Definitely going to try this! Thanks again, Phil

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Never heard the term apple butter before. Beyond consistency differences, how does it differ from just a quick apple puree/ mashed apples? More intense flavour?

It has more of a semi-solid texture of jam, as compared to apple jelly or apple sauce.
Great on waffles or pancakes.

When I were a lad, visiting my grandparents' farm, we kids would collect these deep red crabapples that got made into jelly and apple butter.
The jelly had this amazing ruby-red colour and more intense flavour than most apple jellies.

I think I recall something else about apple butter.
In the making of the crabapple jelly, the sliced cooked apples would be strained through a cone-shaped sieve, with a wooden conical stick to help push it through. 

This removes skin, seeds, and other bits of the core.
What squished out would be poured into a jellybag, and that was suspended overnight over a bowl.
[Image: Jelly+bag+1.jpg]
I think my grandmother used a cloth flour bag, so it was considerably larger.

The contents of the bowl was fairly transparent, and got turned into jelly.
Now I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the pulpy contents of the jellybag then became one of the ingredients for the apple butter.