Having recently vacationed to Boston, my fiancé and I found ourselves lugging 20+ lbs of freshly-picked apples back home in our suitcase. We had gone apple picking in a beautiful rural orchard full of every “Fall” themed thing you could imagine- from rolling hills of various apple trees, to numerous pumpkin patches with vines and vines of pumpkins and gourds, to rows of corn, hay rides, and even a rustic little barn serving apple cider and cider donuts.. this place was heaven.
Our trip was blessed with perfect temperatures: lows in the low 50s and highs around 65-70 F, something us Floridians get to experience for maybe 90 minutes out of the year. According to the city, it was prime-time for apple pickin’, so we went into full basic-white-girl-Floridian-tourist mode and basically threw our money at the best orchard we could find.
The way orchards work, from my understanding, is throughout the apple-picking season, different varieties of apples are available to pick depending on the week. We had three different apple trees to pick from: Spartan, Empire, and Macoun. We took our bag for 1/2 a bushel and got to work- then realized we have to fit these all in our suitcase on the airplane home! After hemming and hawing for a while, I decided to attempt to make some apple butter. As a kid, I used to LIVE for this stuff- as in, slather me in apple butter and roll me in a biscuit for a nap •bye•.
I found some easy crockpot apple butter recipes and decided to go with a highly rated yet incredibly simple one, which I will provide here. Note that I did make a few modifications to taste but like all recipes, it may vary between everyone!
I first started out by washing and rubbing all of the wax off of our apples. We have a ton of them, so it took a little while, but the recipe itself only calls for about 6 apples to supply you with 8 oz. worth of goodness.
Recipe:
6 apples of your choice (you can mix and match- we did!)
1 heaping tablespoon of cinnamon
1/2 lemon squeezed for juice
1/3 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
Directions:
Wash and dry all apples. No need to peel the apples, but you can if you’d like! Core and roughly chop each apple and put into the crockpot.
Add the cinnamon, white sugar, brown sugar, and water.
Cut 1 lemon in half and squeeze the juices over the chopped apples.
Add 1/3 tsp of vanilla extract.
Mix together and set crock pot on “low” for 4 1/2 hours, checking periodically to stir and making sure to add water when needed.
After 4 1/2 hours, remove the apples from the crockpot and mash with a potato masher or place in a blender or food processor to purée until smooth.
If the color of the apple butter is not yet a rich, dark brown, put the mixture back into the crockpot and set to cook on “high” for another hour, uncovered and checking and stirring often.
Taste and add spices or flavoring as desired.
Remove from crockpot into container or jar and enjoy!
Find the original recipe here.
