Apple Butter

By chelyc13

The creamy consistency of fruit butters is remarkable given that they contain no dairy or fat. Choose any variety of sweet apples you like for this recipe--pink lady, red delicious, fuji, and such--but use a combination of three varieties for a more complet flavor. Avoid tart apples like Granny smiths. While most apple butter recipes call for boiling or steaming the apples, I much prefer to raost them, which gives a luscious caramel color and intense flavor. Because of its smoothness and beautiful, rich color, applea butter makes a great gift. Pack it inot artful jars and decorate them with your signature style (a fancy doily? a pretty sticker label? a simple monogrammed note?) If you'd rather keep all the apple butter to yourself, consider making apple fruit leather with some it.

Ingredients

• 8 lbs sweet apples
• 2 tblsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/3 cup golden brown sugar
• 1 teas kosher salt
• 2 teas ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teas ground allspice
• 1/4 teas fround cardamom

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350. Peel, quarter, and corre the apples. Lightly oil 2 large rimmed baking sheets. Arrange the apple pieces in a single layer and bake them for 2 hours, or until brown and fragrant. After 1 hour, swap the positions of the 2 baking sheets and rotate each sheet 180 degrees, so the front apples are now at the back of the oven and vice versa.

In a food processor or plender, puree the fruit for about 4 minutes, or until very smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the lemon juice, sugar, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and cardamom, and puree again for 2-3 minutes more, until all the spices are incorporated and the texture is nearly pudding like.

HOW TO STORE IT:

Refrigerate, in a covered glass jar, up to 1 month.