Six Pints of Apple Butter



Apple butter from apples grown on our backyard tree



We have an apple tree in our backyard. It was loaded with fruit that was reading for picking during the first weekend of October. We had so many apples that it was necessary to figure out a way to preserve them to eat at a later time. I like apples, but there is no way for my wife and I eat two bushels of apples in a week or two, so Linda decided to make apple butter.

After a couple Google searches, she settled on this recipe from Cooks.com.

The hardest part of making apple butter is peeling the apples, but the by-product of the time consuming work was well worth it.  We've eaten a couple of pints already, but with 6 pints remaining there is plenty of apple butter to get us through the winter!

The intimidating part was canning the apple butter (at least for me).  My grandmother and mother always made it look easy when we were kids, but this was the first time we tried to preserve any without their supervision. It turned out to be fairly simple....1) pack the apple butter into hot jars, 2) process in a hot bath on the stove top for 10 minutes.  After removing the jars from the hot water it only took a few minutes for the lids to "pop" signifying a tight seal.  We purchased the 1-pint Ball glass jars at the local Mejier store (like Wal-Mart if you don't live near a Mejier). 

Tip:  We put the apples in the crock pot just  before bedtime and woke up the next morning to the smell of hot apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. What a nice way to wake up!