How to Make Apple Butter
This easy apple butter recipe is made in the slow cooker! This thick autumn spiced spread is fantastic on your morning toast, smoothed over a warm slice of pumpkin bread, or eaten off a spoon.
Servings: 4 cups
Calories: 4kcal
Ingredients
- 6 lbs 12 large or 18 medium soft variety apples
- 2 cups 400 g brown sugar
- 1 cup 200 g white granulated sugar
- 2 sticks cinnamon or 2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- Juice of ½ a lemon
Instructions
- Peel your apples and chop them in relatively equal-sized pieces
- Set your slow cooker on high for eight hours, covered. Leave it alone. Your house will smell like apple pie all day.
- After the eight hours, mash the apples with a potato masher or fork until almost the texture of applesauce. The apples should be a beautiful deep reddish-brown color and the sugars dissolved. The slow cooker will be full of liquid, so for the next two hours leave it uncovered so the liquid can evaporate.
- Keep an eye on the apple butter during the two hours, but the apple butter should be thick at the end of the two hours Keep mashing the apples at your leisure until the individual apples no longer have a form and the apple butter is the texture of thick applesauce.
- Taste the mixture, add lemon juice a bit at a time to lighten the sweetness.
- Spoon the apple butter into sterile containers (for either canning or freezing). Store in the fridge for up to two weeks or freeze for up to 12 months if not canning.
Notes
Freezing Apple Butter
First, let the apple butter cool down to room temperature, then spoon the spread into freezer-safe containers, leaving about ½ an inch of headspace in each container before sealing them and placing them into your freezer. Apple butter keeps well in the freezer for up to an entire year!Soft Variety Apples
Look for 'soft variety' apples like Fuji, Braeburn, Golden Delicious, Cortland, or McIntosh. These are considered 'soft' because their apples soften down easily, making them a dream to mash with a potato masher or fork instead of having to grab an immersion blender or pouring into a food processor.Fixing Runny Apple Butter
Apples vary in water content, from their size to their variety. This recipe has you take off the lid after the apples have been cooking for 8 hours for an additional 2 hours so the water can evaporate. But what if there is just way too much water? Try pouring the apple butter into a shallow oven-safe dish and let it reduce in a 300 degree F oven for an hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the water has evaporated significantly. There should be very little water left. The apple's natural pectin will thicken the apple butter up as it cools.Nutrition
Serving: 1g | Calories: 4kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Sodium: 3mg | Sugar: 1g