Apple Butter

I confess that I’ve only recently discovered apple butter. It was a key ingredient in an Apple Beer Bread recipe that I thought I’d like to make but once I looked up what it was and realised that it wasn’t apple sauce by another name, I started looking for it. Then came the unhappy news that I couldn’t buy a jar of it from the supermarket in Australia like you can apparently can in the UK and I would have to make it. Fortunately, it’s the end of school term and I have lots of sad looking apples that have journeyed to school and back and are a little worse for wear, though still good.

The ingredients are fairly straight forward, but I won’t lie to you and tell you it was effortless to make. There is a reason the recipes say use the jarred stuff because only the slightly mad people like me would probably bother to make it from scratch just to use in another recipe. Still it does taste awesome so definitely worthwhile making it in countries where you can’t buy it easily or wish to join me in my madness.

 

Ingredients:

1 kilo of apples

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp of whatever spices you like. I used 1tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1/4 tsp allspice and a pinch of cardamom. I also splashed in around 1 tbsp of elderflower liqueur (I’d run out of elderflower syrup)

Juice and rind of 1/2 lemon

Method:

Cut the apples into quarters. Don’t peel or core them as you want the pectin, just give them a good wash. Place in a large saucepan with the water and vinegar and cook on a medium heat until very soft, which will take around 30 minutes. Once soft, mash the apples and the liquid together then strain through a sieve.

Return sieved mix to the saucepan and add the remaining ingredients. Cook on low heat until thick and caramelized, careful to not leave it too long unattended or it will catch and burn on the bottom. It should take around an hour and be about this colour:

Pour into sterilised jars and store in the fridge. All that work and apples came to exactly two small jars. This is why unless you have time and a lot of apples that need cooking, you would buy the stuff.

So how did it go? It is delicious – very intense apple with a good tang from the lemon on the aftertaste. My homegrown lemons are turbo charged though, so it may not come out as lemon-y with store bought lemons. If you enjoy the clean finish lemon gives then use a whole lemon rather than half.

 

Update: I made the Apple Beer loaf and it was… interesting. With just butter, the beer flavour is dominant and while not unpleasant, was an uncomfortable taste that was rejected by the rest of my family. I tried it as recommended with a good Pyengana Dairy cheddar from Tasmania, which was nice but challenging. My 11-year-old gourmand advised that he only liked the cheddar.

I then tried the loaf with butter and a smear of the apple butter and huzzah! finally a winner. The dominant flavour was again apple and all was well in the world.

Would I make it again? Apple butter definitely. It is incredibly versatile. I added a spoonful to the peach and raspberry porridge I was making for breakfast and it deepened the peach flavour incredibly. The loaf? Um…no.