Apple Butter

By á-114543

Ingredients

• Prep time: 20 minutesCook time: 2 hours
• Yield: Makes a little more than 3 pint jars.
• 4 lbs of good cooking apples (we use Granny Smith or Gravenstein)
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• Sugar (about 4 cups, see cooking instructions)
• Salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

Preparation

Step 1

1 Cut the apples into quarters, without peeling or coring them (much of the pectin is in the cores and flavor in the peels), cut out damaged parts.
First Stage of Cooking
2 Put them into large pot, add the vinegar and water, cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cook until apples are soft, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

Measure out the purée and add the sugar and spices
3 Ladle apple mixture into a chinois sieve (or foodmill) and using a pestle force pulp from the chinois into a large bowl below. Measure resulting puree. Add 1/2 cup of sugar for each cup of apple pulp. Stir to dissolve sugar. Add a dash of salt, and the cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, lemon rind and juice. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.
Second Stage of Cooking
4 Cook uncovered in a large, wide, thick-bottomed pot on medium low heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Scrape the bottom of the pot while you stir to make sure a crust is not forming at the bottom. Cook until thick and smooth (about 1 to 2 hours). A small bit spooned onto a chilled (in the freezer) plate will be thick, not runny. You can also cook the purée on low heat, stirring only occasionally, but this will take much longer as stirring encourages evaporation. (Note the wider the pan the better, as there is more surface for evaporation.)