New Home/Apple butter

So, I decided that my cooking posts deserved their very own home, since cooking doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with the "mama drama" but I do like having them in a public space for others to play around with and so I have an easily accessible copy.  So here goes:)

Welcome to CG's Kitchen! Pull up a chair and I'll get you a spoon.

Apple Butter

I've been wanting to play around with apple butter for a while and another mom friend pushed me to action, so thanks Jennie:) When I started this today I had no idea it would be such a kitchen adventure! I guess that is the great thing about cooking and experimenting! Anyway...I looked around for some recipes and found one that sounded good over at Canning With Kids. We had looked around at trying to find a you-pick apple place that didn't use sprays but couldn't really find any nearby. I was planning on just buying a couple of big bags of apples at the grocery store when we were driving home from a lovely, long weekend in monterey and stopped at Gizdich Ranch. If you've never been, its definitely worth a special trip. They have amazing pies and apple cider. We missed their you pick season, but when we walked into their store they had big beautiful boxes of apples ready to go! I asked one of the employees what type of apple they would recommend for making apple butter since I really had no idea. I am partial to fuji apples for snacking but I wasn't sure how they would translate into a cooked product. I am so glad I asked! The man told me that the owner of the ranch had used Black Twig apples to make their own apple butter and that was good enough for me. So after making it through the marathon cooking of Thanksgiving, I cracked into that gorgeous box of apples that had been staring me down for a few days. Also, while I was at Gizdich they had a canning section and I had been wanting to buy a food mill to make apple sauce and apple butter and there one was, wrapped in plastic waiting for me and my 1/2 bushel of apples.

Gorgeous Black Twig Apples Ready For Some Buttering!

Before I got down to the job of chopping my apples, I needed 6 cups of apple cider. Normally I would just buy a big jug of cider, but since it was the day after thankgiving, safeway was out. So I did the next best thing (probably the better thing actually), I bought a gallon of apple juice and mulling spices and made my own.

 I washed my apples and got out my apple slicer, a very handy tool to have on hand for this job! The recipe calls for 10 cups of cored, chopped apples. For my apples that was 8 apples, but I'm sure it will depend on the type and size of apples you are using.   8 apples, which as you can imagine barely made a dent in my big box of apples. Oh well.

 Speaking of what apples you are using, you definitely want to choose a tart, cooking apple. Especially if you are canning your apple butter like I am. The tarter the apple, the higher the acidity and the safer it is. I took a bite out of one of the apple slices and WOAH! Tart City! So if you can find Black Twig apples, they definitely fit the bill.

Put your chopped apples and apple cider together in a big pot.

Cook until the apples are very tender, about 20 minutes. Then put them through your food mill. If you don't have a food mill, make sure you peel your apples before cooking them and process them in a blender. Since I was excited about my new food mill, I took it out of the plastic and put it to work. It was hard to tell from the recipe what I was supposed to do with the cider left in the pot, so initially I only took out the apples and put them through the mill. It was going very slowly and I'm pretty sure the size of my right arm doubled in the process. So I poured the cider into the mill as well just to see what would happen. Much easier! The hubby also helped tremendously! He realized that the skins were covering up the holes in the mill, so with a little experimenting he found that if you change the direction you are turning the handle it goes much quicker and easier as well.

We returned the apple mixture, which was now a little like runny applesauce, back to the pot. Added our sugar and spices. 4 cups of sugar, 1.5 tsp of cinnamon, allspice, ground cloves and nutmeg (as per the recipe). I also added 1.5 tsp of ginger because I am all about ginger and because it was smelling like a lot of allspice! Cook it until it starts getting nice and thick. I really wasn't wild about how it was smelling so I added another teaspoon of cinnamon since it just wasn't smelling the way I was hoping. It will definitely be a more savory apple butter than I'm used to.
And then I had a moment. A moment of "Am I really going to be proud to put this in people's christmas baskets this year?" And of course, the answer was a resounding no. So I decided to scrap it. My adorable husband found a use for the first batch. He swears it is delicious with some hot apple cider (that just happened to be simmering on the stove) and some dark rum. I love that guy. He always sees the good in everything:)
The funny thing is that when I finally read the original recipe/blog closer I noticed that the author wasn't too wild about the final product either! At least it wasn't just me! 

Apple Butter: Take 2
So off I went to the store to buy some apple cider vinegar and molasses to try out another recipe. This one is from Local Kitchen, one of my favorite new blogs, well new to me anyway.  While I was in the aisle where they sell all of one kind of apple butter I decided to check the label and see if there was anything I was missing. And I was, high fructose corn syrup. Yuck! And I instantly felt better about all the work I was going through to make my apple butter.

So this time around the recipe called for 5 pounds of apples which equated to 10 apples. So we are definitely making a dent in that box of apples! I sliced up the apples and put them in my big pot with a cup of apple cider vinegar (to keep the apples from browning) and enough water to cover the apples. Bring them to a boil and then simmer, covered for 20-30 minutes. I cooked them for about 25 minutes. I noticed they were much softer than the last batch. I put them through the food mill. It was much easier to mash them up this time, I imagine because they were so much softer.  Then I returned the puree to the pot and added 1/2 cup of bourbon, 2 tablespoons of molasses, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and allspice and 1/8 tsp of ground cloves. As I was putting them into the pot I thought to myself, "Now these measurements sound much more realistic than the last one!" And man, oh man. While it was cooking, it smelled delicious!! It definitely has that bourbon bite and spice.
 Hooray for bourbon!

I let it cook until it thickened up and would mound up on a wooden spoon.

Well, hello gorgeous!

Then tossed it in some 4 ounce jars and process them for 10 minutes. I was thrilled that one batch filled a whole case of 4 ounce jars and even better than that? All 12 little jars fit in my canner.

I love it when a canning plan comes together

Done and done. So everyone is getting apple butter this year! If I do another batch (which I probably will) I think I might let it get even thicker. I really like thick apple butter. As I was putting it into the jars I was thinking it could be thicker...but all in all I am really happy with the end product. It was a very long apple butter adventurous day but a success in the end.