I went to brunch at a friend’s a few weeks ago (Thanksgiving weekend?) and she made pumpkin pancakes served with apple butter. I hadn’t had either before, and the apple butter was really tasty. So I’d been thinking about making some myself. Then on Christmas Eve I ended up at the last day of the Olympia Farmer’s Market. I asked one of the vendors if he knew an apple that was particularly good for apple butter. He recommended Criterion, which I hadn’t heard of. It was pretty tasty; I bought half a dozen. Yesterday I finally got around to making it. I looked up a bunch of recipes and created one of my own. I haven’t actually had it yet post-canning, but as a work in progress it made the house smell like apple pie & tasted similarly.
Ad-hoc apple butter
makes 4 jars
8 apples, cored & chopped into big chunks [6 criterion, 2 fuji]
2/3 c Angry Orchard ginger cider
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 cinnamon stick
- Butter a slow cooker crock (what is that called, anyway?)
- Put all the ingredients into the slow cooker, cook on low overnight. (I think it was 11 hours; it had switched to warm when I got up.)
- Stir, remove cinnamon stick, and blend with immersion blender.
- Put the cinnamon stick back and turn slow cooker to high. Cook about 3 hours.
- Pour into jars, process in water bath if desired.
