My friend Stephanie told me a few years ago that she makes apple butter in her crockpot. I’ve been wanting to make it ever since but never took the time to do it. With our recent jaunt to the apple orchard, I had plenty of apples on hand to make some. So voila!
Apple Butter in a Crockpot:
Start with fresh apples. We picked a little over a peck at the orchard. They were huge apples. The amount you need will vary according to the size of your crockpot and the size of your fruit.
Core, peel and slice your apples. There is a tool that will do all this for you with the turn of a crank.
It’s so easy an almost 7 yr.-old can use it.
Or a five-year-old..
They look like this when they’re done.
While you’re peeling them, you’re welcome to eat the scraps. My girls did.
Natalie ate the scraps while turning the crank… the little multi-tasker that she is.
(notice she was unable to brush her hair and have proper attire on…)
Keep peeling, coring, and slicing until your crockpot is full. It took us 11 ginormous apples to fill my 6 qt. crockpot.
Then put the lid on and turn the crockpot to high and let it do it’s thing.
At about lunchtime, I check the apples and they were starting to turn to mush. I added half the sugar (2 cups) and about half the cinnamon (3 tbsp). These ingredients will also vary according to how big your crockpot is…. but a good rule is to put in less than you think you’ll need and add more until it tastes good to you. But don’t put it all in now…
…. because you can still add apples.
I added 8 more humongous apples to the pot, stirred them into the hot apple mush and continued cooking on high.
Throughout the day, I stirred the apples and check their mushiness. When most the lumps were gone I added 1.75 more cups of sugar (1/2 cup at a time, stirring and tasting) and another 1.5 tbsp of cinnamon. I stirred and stirred to get the spices mixed in good and then for good measure let it cook a little more. I also used a fork to break up some of the larger pieces.
Mine ended up being a little lumpy. I could’ve put it in a blender to puree it, but it was boiling hot and I didn’t want it to cool down. I needed it hot to have it seal without a canner.
Then I used the same method my sister, Johanna, and I used for canning strawberry and peach jam. I grabbed my piping hot jars from the dishwasher….
Filled them up to an eighth-of-an-inch from the rim with apple butter….
Made sure they were dry all around the top…
And sealed them with hot lids.
Then turned them over on my counter to vacuum seal. I ended up with 15 pints of yummy apple butter.
Do you plan on putting anything up this fall? My mom has a great recipe for pumpkin butter….
(c) 2016 Leighann Marquiss
Comments (9)
This looks fantastic! I am going to try this recipe out! Did you leave the crockpot lid on or off? What kind of apples did you use?
Thanks
Wendy
@Wendy – Definitely with lid… we used Johnnygold apples. You could probably use any sweet apple though.
Curious as to why this is apple butter and not apple sauce,did I miss something?
mmmmm….your apple butter looks yummy…I will be right over. 🙂 (I wish).
@anonymous: I’m not sure that there is that much of a between apple sauce and apple butter. I’ve made both now. I think the biggest thing is consistency. I cooked the apple sauce way less and it was thicker. I also added a lot more cinnamon. The end result was a spreadable, brown apple butter…. the apple sauce was yellow and more gloppy. Other than that, there really isn’t that much of a difference. Did that answer your question?
Thanks, Leighann, really I thought that I’d missed something, like where is the butter? Not much of a Martha Stewart here, but this looks good whether butter or sauce, yummy, and easy in the crockpot. I might actually try it.
you canned something without me??? Looks easy and fun. I will have to try it.
I’m sure your house smelled heavenly 🙂 Question. Could you have used a potato masher to mash up the apples near the end? to make them smoother? I definately need to head to the local orchard and get me some apples Yum Yum
Please send us the Pumpkin Butter recipe.
Thanks, Kitzie