Recipe: Apple Butter

Kat has been wanting to make Apple Butter for the last few weeks. Whenever we have traveled to Indiana to visit my hubby's family we eat at a restaurant called The Essenhaus. A wonderful Amish style family restaurant. What she remembers is the Apple Butter and how much she loved it. So when some friends offered us a bag of apples from their tree we took them up on it and decided to make apple butter. I was going to use Sandy's recipe for Apple Butter but Kat wanted to make it without sugar. So I did a little searching online and found this recipe at World Famous Recipes. Instead of sugar it uses Orange Juice and Apple Cider (or juice, like I used). It also took longer because you bake the mixture in the oven. The directions are long so I gave you the link above. I think it turned out great, but for some reason Kat thought the one in Indiana tasted like it had Peanut Butter. I asked her if it was possible she was tasting their Peanut Butter (they serve both at the table). She was pretty adamant that it was the apple butter. I'm not so sure. She said this tasted like hot applesauce! I think she'll still eat it. It did turn out great just using unsweetened, 100% apple juice and O.J. Not too sweet, but not at all sour. And the house smelled wonderful.

Yummy Apples from friends.

Cutting them up! I gave up coring them and just peeled and cut them away from the core. They were going to get blended anyways.

Pouring the liquid in the container (this went into the pans with the apples, but I figured we were going to use the blender anyways so we might as well dirty one less container.)

Simmering away on the stove...yummy!

Once it was done simmering (about 20 minutes) it went into the blender to be mixed.

Oh, how we love our Vitamix!

It all goes into a huge baking pan where it bakes for 1 hour till reduced by 1/2.

Then the seasonings are added. I didn't have cloves.

Stir it up and back in the oven it goes for another 3 hours till thickened and reduced.

The only thing about this recipe is that we only got 2 pints and 1 half pint container and I used five pounds of apples. So I'm not sure if I'd use it again. I might use Sandy's recipe and just use the apple juice. Not sure. I think I'll go try some on toast now!

With Joy UNquenchable,