Thursday, September 17, 2009

Why, yes...I did make a wonderfully delicious batch of apple butter yesterday!

Ooooooh, I cannot describe to you how amazing my house smelled yesterday! It was a cooler day (very windy) and the warmth of the smell in my house had me all excited for the Fall season. What was that wonderful smell you speak of, you ask? Why, it was the smell of apple butter simmering away in my crockpot from 9:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night. It was absolutely wonderful and I can't wait to make it again!

I started with a very small batch because I wanted to make sure it would turn out good, rather than make a ton of something and figure out that no one in the house likes it. What prompted me to make it in the first place was when I saw something about making apple butter in a crock pot on someone's blog and it made me think of my Great Grandma Shock and how she would eat apple butter on toast every single morning. I never, ever had tried it and I thought...how cool would it be to make some myself?!

Now that I know that it does turn out incredibly well and incredibly yummy, I wanted to share it with whoever may read this, so you can try it too! Such a fun way to fill your home with a warm, comforting smell and end up with a super tasty treat that I know your kids will flip for (at least mine did) and you will look forward to treating yourself to. Let me tell ya, have it with a cup of coffee and it's downright blissful!

So, without further ado, here it is...the recipe and pictures of the process. Enjoy!


First I got out the ingredients:9 apples, sugar (use 2 cups), cinnamon (use 2 teaspoons), ground cloves (use 1/4 teaspoon) and salt (use 1/4 teaspoon).



Then, I peeled the apples, cored them and chopped them up. I threw them into the crockpot, along with the other ingredients and stirred it all up.



I cooked the mixture on high in the crockpot for 1 hour. I stirred it and then I turned it down to low for the remainder of the cooking time, stirring every hour. (This is what it looked like after that first hour of cooking.)



Here is a picture of the mixture half way through the cooking process. (About 7 hours in.)



Here is a picture at the end of the cooking process. (After cooking and being stirred each hour for 13 hours total and I also took a potato masher to it at the end to get out the few bigger chunks that were left.)



Here is a picture of it once I put it into the jars. You can put it into the jars while it's hot. (This amount of ingredients only gave me one and a half jars, so if you want a bigger quantity, you'll need to use more ingredients.)



Here is a picture of the apple butter in the jars this morning, after having been in the fridge.



Here is the consistency of the apple butter on a spreading knife.




It is nice and sweet, so you only need a thin layer of it on your toast or english muffin or whatever you decide to put it on. I found that having a little bit of butter on before you add the apple butter knocks down the sweetness a little and makes it delicious!

This really was incredibly easy and I know that if you decide to make it, you will be very happy you did! Happy cooking!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I love, *love*, *LOVE* apple butter - I am SOOOOOOOO excited that you posted this. I was just thinking we would need to pick up some apple butter the next time we were in Amish country. Instead, now I'm gonna give this a shot!!

Too bad I read this too late for today....but soon....

Thanks~
Lori

p.s. I wonder if you could miss an hour or two of the stirring process?? Tomorrow we have Bible study in the evening, Saturday we have SVL...I might have to wait until next week......*sigh* Oh well, I'm sure it will be worth it!!

Lauren said...

awesome! I am going to make this today as well. Your recipe is easier then the ones I've found! Thanks!

LLJ said...

looks and sounds yummy! I bet the smell was wonderful yesterday! & the taste too : )

Kelly said...

Im am going to make this with the kids this weekend, we are going to either the Farmers market or the orchard and getting a bushel of apples,and we are going to make Apple butter, apple pie, and applesauce! Thanks for the recipe! I love apple butter ♥