Homemade Apple Pie Butter. Yeah, my label in the photo calls it JAM… I did not notice I put the word “jam” instead of “butter” until I had labeled all my jars…. oh well. Ha! Anyway, this apple BUTTER is delicious. I’ve decided to call it Apple Pie Butter because that is what it tastes like: apple pie. The best part about this is I did NOT add sugar to this. Only naturally occurring apple sugars here, and it is STILL so sweet and tasty. I really want to experiment using this butter in a pie, maybe replacing the added sugar? I’ll let you know how it goes.
I asked, on Instagram, if any of you’d like to have the recipe… and it was a big ‘ol YES. Well, enough babbling… here’s my no sugar added Apple Pie Butter recipe! FYI: you’ll need a crock pot.
Apple Pie Butter
(adapted from this recipe on Eating Richly)
- About 25 medium apples (or a mix of small and large)
- 3 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
- 1 lemon
Directions:
1. Start coring and slicing apples (I used an apple corer/slicer and trimmed bad pieces with a knife). Toss your slices into the crock pot as you go along. Once your crock pot is full: stop prepping apples.
2. Turn your crock pot on LOW and let those apples cook down anywhere from 8 to 10 hours (this depends on the type of apple you use: softer cooks faster), or when they are soft/mushy. Feel free to stir the apples whenever you’d like (I did every couple hours).
3. When your time is up stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2. You just add more apples, mix, and wait. Cook for another 8 – 10 hours.
5. When this time is up, do a taste test to see if you should add more spices, or not.
6. If there’s still room in your crock pot after it cooks down more, add another round of apple following steps 1 and 2. Cook for another 8 – 10 hours.
7. When this time is up, use an immersion blender to puree it. You could use a food processor, but that’s just more dishes… I love our immersion blender. Add the juice of your whole lemon and if you’d like, maybe a little lemon zest. Blend that in real quick.
8. Let this cook down to the consistency you like. We like our apple butter smooth and thick. If it’s not cooking down fast enough, you can crack the lid a little to get some moisture out.
9. If you’re canning this butter, use the water bath method (I let our jars process for 10 minutes). If you are NOT canning… I believe the butter is good in the fridge for 1 – 2 weeks, or store it in the freezer (in a proper freezer storage container).
Side notes:
- Makes: 8 pints
- Cost: For my first round I got all of my apples for free. The lemon was $1. The new lids were about $4? I think. Soooo… it was about .63 cents a pint. I’m terrible with math… but I know this saved me some cash. We normally spend about $6 for a large jar of no sugar added apple butter. The second round I spent $8 on damaged organic apples (I just cut all the bruises off), $1 for the lemon, and more lids for $4. That means it was about $1.38 a pint. Still a great deal (and it’s fun to make).
- The majority of my apples for the first round were Gala. The second round was a variety of apples (since they were on sale). I prefer the first apple butter over the second. Both are still great, but I love Gala apples.
- The best part about this whole canning thing: I have more control over our food. I still had to get the ingredients from the store, but I made it.
I also made some “made with love” canning labels to share with you guys (just in case I’ve inspired you to get canning). I’m in a canning club here in Portland, and we bring 5 jars of our current creation to swap. I LOVE it. I’ll be bringing 5 jars to share for this week. Yay! Click on these links to right click + save the printouts. There are four colors: red, green, tan, and blue. ::personal use only, please::
If you DO end up making this: let me know how it went! Enjoy!
- Chelsey
