topic Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter in Recipes

Crock Pot Apple Butter

ECBG — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:11:09 GMT

CROCK POT APPLE BUTTER

Printed from COOKS.COMh

Approximately 3 lb. apples
3 cups sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cloves
Dash of salt
3/4 cup water or fresh apple cider

Fill Crock-pot 3/4 full with peeled, cored and sliced apples. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until evenly mixed. Cover and cook on low setting overnight or until the butter is of a thick, spreadable consistency.

If apple butter has too much liquid, remove lid and cook on high until thickened. Stir often as butter thickens to prevent scorching.

Store in refrigerator for up to 6 weeks. Freeze for longer storage.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ocgal3 — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 17:23:14 GMT

something is way off in your ratio of apples to sugar. Sugar is way too much for 3 pounds of apples

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ECBG — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 19:16:27 GMT

@ocgal3 wrote:
something is way off in your ratio of apples to sugar. Sugar is way too much for 3 pounds of apples

@ocgal3 Thanks. I checked into it. 4.7 stars out of 99 reviews. Certainly, the type of apple would have a great effect on the sweetness.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

aroc3435 — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 21:38:36 GMT

@ECBG I found several slow cooker recipes online and in my cookbooks where the ratio of sugar to the amount of apples is identical or similar to the one you listed.

My references included Phyllis Good's cookbooks and Joy of Cooking. Of course the trend today is to use the least amount of sugar, or none at all.

Thank you for posting this. I haven't made apple butter in a long time. You've made me a little homesick for Connecticut where I could purchase it at places like Bishop's Farm, when I was too lazy to make it.

I should make some pumpkin butter, too. And Indian Pudding. And apple cider doughnuts. I love summer, though, so not in a rush to start cooking the autumn foods yet. They are predicting a high of 91 degrees in DC tomorrow. We've already have had forty 90 degrees or above days to date.

@ocgal3 If you use no sugar added in your apple butter online search you can find some that rely only on the natural sweetness of the apple itself.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ECBG — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 21:44:17 GMT

@aroc3435 Sorry you're homesick.

You could always take the fresh berries at your farmer's market and make turnovers. I don't feel like cinnamon at this time of year at ALL! lol!

The pastry is from the refrigerator section.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ocgal3 — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 15:01:26 GMT

my apologies! thanks for re-checking.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

sfnative — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:00:20 GMT

@ECBG

@ocgal3

@aroc3435

I really appreciate the recipe and discussion regarding apple butter today.

I loved it as a child, but haven't had much since then, simply because it slipped to the back of my mind, with a career that took over my life.

Will get my crock pot out and make this happen. I live in the Pacific Northwest and our nearest Portland Nursery has a humongous Apple Festival, where you can sample what must be over 200 varities of apples. We live deep in apple country!

I can see there is going to be the purchase of more jars in my future, as my current crop is due for Marionberry jam, which I'll be making in about 2 weeks.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ECBG — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:37:50 GMT

@sfnative Hope you enjoy. I'm in apple country here too. We even made Gerber baby food here from our apples!

Enjoy! We want pictures!

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

loriqvc — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:55:31 GMT

@ECBG - I have to agree with @ocgal3 about the proportion of sugar being very high; I make apple butter in my slow cooker every couple of years, and although I don't have my recipe handy at the moment, I believe it calls for only 1 C granulated sugar and 1/2 C brown sugar for about five pounds of apples. With any apple butter recipe, you want to use sweeter and softer apples (not Granny Smiths like you do for baking), so you're starting off with a pretty sweet combination of flavors. I will check my recipe tonight and report back, if that would be helpful...

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ECBG — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 19:02:32 GMT

@loriqvc It would seem that the sweetness thing would might be more regional. I went back and checked a number of recipes on Cooks dot com where I got it. Most recipes had the higher sugar. Sugar isn't for preservation and there's no telling which recipe has been "tweaked" for taste.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

sfnative — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 21:25:57 GMT

@ECBG wrote:
@loriqvc It would seem that the sweetness thing would might be more regional. I went back and checked a number of recipes on Cooks dot com where I got it. Most recipes had the higher sugar. Sugar isn't for preservation and there's no telling which recipe has been "tweaked" for taste.

@ECBG

@loriqvc

Though the amount of sugar placed in any butter or jam recipe may originally have catered to the taste of that period in time, tastes and carb choices are changing some folks' decisions to decrease the amount of sugar in their recipes. I'm one of those people.

However, while taking the year-long Microbiology course required of us, prior to moving forward to our "clinicals" in Nursing School, we learned that sugar is indeed a preservative and anti-bacterial growth factor. Indeed not as potent as salt, sugar still provides a chemical barrier for cells.

Yes, mold will grow like heck on your jams, jellies and butters, but molds/fungi are another story. That's why it's imperative that we wash, wash, wash our fruit in order to achieve as clean a crop of fruit for canning as possible.

Because molds/fungi are biologically classified as "eucaryote" cells, the same as human cells, it's really hard to get rid of them. This is why boiling your canning jars, per directions, is so very important: we need to kill the fungal spores, which are on the inside of the jars. And, believe me they are there, even though you can't see them.

Easy to kill in the boiling process: Bacteria, most

More difficult to kill in the boiling process: Anearobic Bacteria:

Bacteria which thrive in an oxygen starved atmosphere like

your newly prepared butter, jam & jelly.

Hard to kill in the boiling process: Molds/Fungi

Follow instructions for a good, long boil.

Re: Crock Pot Apple Butter

ECBG — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 21:32:45 GMT

@sfnative Wow! Sugar can somewhat hold back some of the negatives! Amazing! Of course science has, thankfully, come a long way!

Thank you for taking the time to type that explanation. Much appreciated.