Some friends recently shard a good sized bag of their small, sour, homegrown apples with us, so I spent parts of two days making and canning apple butter. I do it partly based on a recipe, and partly based on "feel," but here are the approximate proportions:2 cups of apple pulp (I make apple pulp by cutting and peeling apples, cooking them over low heat until they are soft, and putting them through the blender)
1 cup sugar (or more or less, according to what you like)
2 tsp. of cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
I mix it all into my crock pot, let it cook until it's thick, and then put the apple butter into canning jars and process them in boiling water for 15 minutes. If you are interested in canning, I would recommend the Ball book on canning. It describes the canning process and explains how to do it as well as giving many good recipes!
Little Man sat on the counter where I was working and enjoyed getting apples out of the sink for me and sampling every one. It was a win-win situation: I enjoyed his company, he enjoyed mine (and the apples), and he stayed out of trouble while I got my work done.
5 comments:
Wow cool! Thats really neat. Sounds like something I'd like to try. What do you use apple butter for? I've never done any canning before. Now that I have a cellar to call my own, I think I'll look for that book.
Apple butter is like thick, sweet applesauce used on bread instead of jam. I'm sure there are other creative ways of using it, but I like it on bread so much that I've never explored them. I've found the book on Amazon.com. There's another that I'm interested in but can't give a review of yet since I don't have it. It's called Preserving the Harvest, and apparently it has informatin on root cellar-ing as well as on canning.
Yay for apple butter!
Christina, thanks for stopping by my cooking blog! I hope you enjoy the Pumpkin Bread. I have to say, I LOVE making Apple Butter too, but I don't have nearly as cute of an assistant, LOL. :)
yeah, thanks so much for directing me here Christina. Its so fun to see your family and house and things. encouraging too :)
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