Apple Butter

I had high hopes of reliving my childhood this fall and hand-picking a box of apples for our family.  I remember visiting my grandparents in Oroville, WA when I was about ten years old.  We visited the orchards where we picked buckets full of delicious apples (most of which ended up in my Grandma Wilson's famous apple pie).  We also visited the local apple packing plant, which was pretty much the highlight of the decade for me.  Watching the apples tumble along mechanized belts, plop into a channel of water (for rinsing), and then float by the workers who sorted out "the good" from "the bad" felt much more exciting than a ride at Disneyland to me.

Orchards and apple packing plants are difficult to come by in the Seattle Metropolitan area so it just wasn't to be this year.  But I was determined to find some top-notch apples to use in a few Autumn creations I'd been craving.  You can imagine my delight when I stopped at the produce stand at the Mercer Blueberry Farm in Bellevue and discovered they were selling boxes and boxes of fresh, wax-free apples, directly from the orchards in eastern Washington.  I immediately purchased more apples than I could comfortably carry and lugged them on home.

My husband had been asking me to make homemade apple butter, something I'd never done before but thought sounded easy enough.  I had a pretty full day that involved lots of trips out of the house, so I opted to try a slow cooker recipe that I could go unattended.  It is ridiculous that something this good can be so easy to make.

I used a combination of Pacific Rose, Pink Lady and Fuji apples in place of the Golden Delicious that the recipe calls for and I cut back on the granulated and brown sugars a smidge.  I halved the recipe (since 4 cups of apple butter per person seemed a bit excessive for our small family) with great results.  If I make a half batch again next time, I'll probably shorten the cooking time on low from 10 to 8 hours since it seemed to be baking to the sides of the slow cooker with the reduced volume.  Enjoy!   

SLOW COOKER APPLE BUTTER  

Yield: 12 cups

Ingredients:

12 pounds Golden Delicious apples - peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

3 cups granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground allspice

Directions:

1. Place apples and vinegar into a large slow cooker, and place lid on top. Set on High, and cook for 8 hours, then turn to Low, and continue cooking 10 hours more.

2. After 18 hours, stir in white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, clove, and allspice, and cook 4 hours more.

*Recipe courtesy of Allrecipes.com