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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, October 9, 2002

Select freshest fruit when making apple butter

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Fresh apple butter tastes wonderful on hot-out-of-the-oven biscuits.

Gannett News Service

For a decade when I lived in the Seattle area, I made apple cider every fall to give as holiday gifts.

Washington state is an apple-growing center and during the time I was living there, a number of small orchards were reviving intriguing varieties of western Washington apples. This followed a generation during which the industry was dominated by eastern Washington-grown Red and Golden Delicious varieties, and the western Washington apple industry had died.

It was a pleasurable annual pilgrimage to drive into the country on a crisp early-fall morning to find an orchard or two where I could buy apples by the boxful. I'd consult with the grower about which were good for cooking, which for eating.

Another stop would be at the home of a gruff old man who'd become a friend after I did a story on his home-based apple cider operation.

Each year, he'd use his father's jerry-rigged old wooden cider press to make me a batch of fresh cider — a cloudy, brown liquid with a beautifully balanced sweetness. If you left it in the garage for a night or two, it'd begin to fizz a bit and give you a lift and then a terrible hangover. But it made beautiful apple butter.

By mid-afternoon, I'd be back home, and the kitchen would fill up with the scent of apples and cinnamon.

The recipe I used is so easy it's embarrassing — cooked, pureed, baked in the oven.

The cider, a mixture of apple varieties, whole spices and the freshness of the apples all made for a preserve that was as luxuriously smooth as butter, not too powerfully flavored with cinnamon, and well-set but not runny.

It's a bit trickier in Hawai'i because, of course, none of the apples we get are hours from the tree, and most of the cider is pasteurized and filtered. But I've found that you can make a lovely apple butter with a mix of available varieties (but NOT Red Delicious, Fuji or Gala) and good-quality cider from a health food store.

Get the freshest possible apples (an unripe apple or two doesn't hurt; they contain more pectin); older apples won't set up properly.

Pack apple butter in hot, sterilized jars. If you want the apple butter to keep, you must process it in a boiling water bath for five minutes and listen for the tops to seal. Or you can keep it in the refrigerator for a few weeks.

Apple Butter

  • 8-10 cups peeled, cored apples cut into eighths
  • 1 cup apple cider (you may need a little more)
  • Sugar
  • Spice bundle (see below)

Place apples in a large dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot with apple cider and cook, stirring occasionally, until apples are cooked through, about 30 minutes. If the mixture threatens to stick, add apple cider, one tablespoon at a time. Do not allow puree to get soupy.

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Press hot apple purée through sieve or food mill (or you may process it in a food processor very briefly; do NOT liquefy). Measure purée back into pot. For every cup of apple purée, add 1/3 cup sugar. Bury spice bundle in purée.

Place uncovered pot in oven and cook one hour, stirring occasionally. Turn heat down to 275 degrees and begin tasting and testing: Spoon some apple butter onto a saucer; it should "sit up" and not release a big pool of water.

Taste for sweetness (some recipes for this amount of purée use half again as much sugar; I think too much sugar masks the apple flavor). The flavor should be scented with spice but not overpowered. If the flavor seems right, but the sauce is not yet cooked down enough, remove spice bundle. The sauce may take 2-3 hours more to cook to the right texture.

Addition: This apple butter recipe calls for a spice bundle, which is made by tying the following into a square of cheesecloth: 3 to 4 whole cinnamon sticks, 2 whole allspice, 2 whole cloves and 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg.

Nutritional analysis per 2-tablespoon serving: 58 cal., 0.1 g protein, 15 g carbohydrates, 1.5 g fiber, 0.2 g fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0.3 mg sodium.