The apple butter is done. I had some on toast this morning. Have I told you I'm addicted to cinnamon?? This was sweet and thick and full of cinnamon.
I have a few more thoughts to share with you about apple butter before we move on to other subjects. When my links are up, you'll find "Simply Recipes" listed among them. Elise has a recipe that is almost identical to the one I gave for apple butter, with one exception. Her recipe calls for apple cider vinegar. I thought that maybe it was an error, but according to Elise it's just a variant on the recipe. I prefer my apple butter sweet and spicy, so I use apple cider instead.
Be sure to check the links at Simply Recipes for the chinois and the food mill. If you do enough canning to justify the cost of the food mill, that's the utensil I'd recommend. It takes a lot longer to push all the pulp through the chinois, and it can be tiring.
I should have also explained that it's necessary to put the jars of apple butter into a boiling water bath. I used pint sized jars, and found instructions that said I should boil them for 10 minutes once the water returned to a rolling boil.
One of my readers commented that she would pass on this recipe until next year because she didn't have all the canning equipment at hand. Adele, I meant to tell you that I used a trick from Cop Car. I filled a stockpot with water and placed seven canning rings in the bottom to keep the jars up off the bottom of the pan. Slick trick, huh??
The guidelines on how long to cook are indefinite because there are several factors which come into play. The moisture in the apples and how wide the cooking pot is, come to mind. I used a stock pot, and after two hours I said "Enough!" I wish I had cooked it just 15-20 minutes longer. You're looking for a smooth, dark texture. Longer cooking will give you a darker apple butter.
I ended up with almost seven pint jars. The partial jar was put into the refrigerator, and the apple butter set up a bit when it cooled.
And....there is no butter in apple butter!
Comments (2)
Wonderful, wonderful that you got a good batch of applebutter!! You like your applebutter dark...and I prefer light. My applebutter only gets really dark when it reaches 10-15 years of age--much as the color of Mom's applebutter that I had on toast for dinner, last night. (Reading your blog made me think to have some!) Applebutter is so much better on hot biscuits, though! *sigh*
As to using cider vinegar: Perhaps the originator of that variation had the sweetness of the apples she was using in mind. I should only use cider vinegar if I was forced to use apples that were too sweet. Nah...I wouldn't even do it then. It sounds repugnant to me!
Posted by Cop Car | November 13, 2005 9:27 AM
Posted on November 13, 2005 09:27
Well, DUH! I didn't stop to think that she might have been using the vinegar to offset too sweet apples.
Yeah...I like the dark version, the kind that starts out dark, with LOTS of spice in it. I'm glad my post prompted you to have some today!
Posted by buffy | November 13, 2005 11:21 PM
Posted on November 13, 2005 23:21