Apple Butter Recipe
Many readers both here and at Capital Hill Forum have asked for the apple butter recipe that my family uses in their apple butter making. I share photos of the event
HERE.
Please note that the following is for a 40 Gallon Kettle:
13 bushels of Golden Delicious apples
The items below are added in the last hour.
25 – 35 lbs of sugar is added first….check and sweeten to taste.
One the sugar has dissolved and is distributed throughout the apple butter you can add the following (these are guidelines and starting points, add to your taste):
2 cups of ground cinnamon
1/2 cup of ground cloves
1/2 cup allspice
For those of you who don’t have a copper kettle and 2 days to peel and cook apple butter you can use your crock pot and get a fairly decent apple butter outcome. You will have to make your own adjustments to quantity unless someone has a good crock pot recipe.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Funny you should mention this. I just made apple butter for the first time yesterday. My mom used to make it when I was a kid and after she passed away last month, I was determined to resurrect her old tradition. I hope you don’t mind if I share my recipe too.
Here’s my thrown together recipe which has already been downsized for the indoor cook.
About 3/4 of a half bushel of quartered and cored but unpeeled apples (I used Stayman-Winesap and Crispin evenly mixed).
Cook the apples down in a few cups of water and then run them through a sieve or food mill. I guess you could omit this step, but then you’d have to peel the apples, which is probably more time-consuming than using a food mill.
Add the following once you have the sauce.
4-5 cups of granulated sugar (go by the taste)
a few generous squeezes of honey
few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar.
cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg to taste.
I used about 2 heaping Tbsps of cinnamon, 1 Tbsp of ground cloves, and about 1/2 of a nutmeg (grated by hand).
Cook the hell out of it for hours. I actually used an enameled cast iron dutch oven and put it in the oven at 350 for about 3 hours. What didn’t fit in the dutch oven was cooked on the stovetop on low heat. (I’d say that cooking in the oven is preferable because you won’t have issues with sticking – that’s how my mom always did it.)
After all was said and done, I got 8 pint jars from this recipe.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Thanks very much for sharing your recipe. Sounds like you had fun making it!
December 8th, 2008 at 4:13 am
I have never heard of apple butter, so i’m wondering if you could tell me how do you eat it? Smeared on some bread or in recipes or?
Thank you, can’t wait to hear your reply, i have tons of apples on the balcony and this sounds like it could be a good idea. 
December 8th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Hi Maja….apple butter is used like jelly. It’s best on homemade hot bread but any bread is good.