recipe: baked apple butter

6 pounds cooking apples, such as cortland and macoun, peeled, cored, and quartered
4 cups apple juice
4 cups water
juice of 1 lemon
¾ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice

This recipe requires a long baking time, when I make it again I plan to prepare the apples and put them through the blender one evening, then the next day I’ll add the rest of the ingredients, boil, bake, and can. I also found that 10 hours in the oven at 200F wasn’t long enough, so next time I plant to increase the temperature to 225F or 250F.

Combine apples, apple juice, and water in a large heavy saucepan. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the apples are soft, about 1 ½ hours. Preheat the oven to 200F. Run the apples through the blender to reach desired consistency (this doesn’t take long). Return to the pan and add lemon juice, white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Slowly bring to a boil stirring frequently. Pour three-quarter of the puree into a crock or deep baking dish, reserving the rest. Bake, uncovered, until thick enough to mound on a spoon, about 10 hours. As the mixture shrinks, add the reserved puree. Pack the hot fruit butter into hot jars. Leave ¼ inch headspace and boiling water process for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

This photograph is now available in my Etsy shop.