It’s ok to give yourself a gift every now and then. For me, loading the freezer with apple butter each fall is a gift to myself for the winter. Apple butter sweetens most of the quick breads we make during the winter for bake sales and cooking classes, and it’s also the key ingredient in a lot of our snowy day pancake recipes at home. Every year on one of these late fall weekends, I’ll head to Tower Grove and buy as many varieties of local apples as I can find. If I can talk the kids into picking the apples at a local orchard, all the better. Then I’ll spend a lazy afternoon peeling apples and listening to great music on the patio. I toss the apples and spices into my big dutch oven and forget about it. The apple butter cooks itself overnight, slowly filling the house with the aroma of happy days ahead. Make enough to eat on pancakes this weekend and freeze the rest in half cup containers for baking. You’ll thank yourself this winter.
- 5 pounds local apples-mixed varieties
- ½ cup local honey
- ¼ cup apple cider (or Vermont Boiled Cider if you can get your hands on it)
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground mace
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Roughly peel and chop apples. They don't need to be perfect.
- Combine all ingredients in a heavy dutch oven and stir over low heat until it begins to simmer.
- Put on the lid and place in oven for 4 hours.
- Turn the oven off but leave the pot untouched overnight.
- In the morning, return to stove and mash with potato masher (or use a stick blender) and simmer to desired thickness, about ten minutes.
- Store in the refrigerator for short term use, or freeze for winter baking.