Since I haven’t had much success with making jams and jellies, I’m glad to have had success with making apple butter. Mid-October, my family made a trip to Apple Annie’s Orchard to pick apples. At that time, what they had for harvest was lots of Granny Smith and some Rome Beauty. So, we got around 8 pounds to bring home. We won’t really eat Granny Smith plain, but, with a little added sugar, we like them prepared in things. Now, mine never turns out as pretty as other pictures that I have seen, but it works out well enough for us!
I used 6 1/2 pounds of the apples we picked, a mix of Granny Smith and Rome Beauty varieties, and used my peeler/corer/slicer to prepare all the apples, then used a hand chopper to chop them into smaller pieces. This filled up my 6 quart slow cooker pretty much to the top. Then, I added sugar and spices, skipping the salt and vanilla extract, according to this recipe for Slow Cooker Apple Butter:
– 1 cup granulated sugar
– 1 cup light brown sugar
– 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
– 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
– 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Normally, I wouldn’t add sugar, but with as many Granny Smith apples as I had, it needed the sugar to balance out the tart. I cooked it on low overnight, about 10 hours. In the morning, I removed the lid and used my hand mixer to smooth out the apples in the slow cooker. I left the lid off and continued to cook it on low for another 2 hours, until it had gotten a thicker consistency.
We love to eat this on toast and waffles, plus it’s a nice addition to a peanut butter sandwich instead of the grape jelly I buy at the store. It’s a wonderful fall treat! The prep takes some time and effort, but then you can let it cook all day while you work on other things.
My Gems of Parenting 
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