Apple Butter

When I was a newlywed, my Grandma Margaret gave my husband a jar of apple butter for Christmas and my DH thought that was the best stuff in the world! So I spent a day with Grandma that next spring and learned how to make apple butter! We had a good visit, I always enjoyed going to Grandma's house. When I was little, I would spend a week with her during the summer and sit and play checkers with Grandpa.

I was really excited to see fruit trees when we were first looking to buy our place. I have two apple trees, two cherry trees, and two pear trees. Our first spring we had a bad freeze and I lost my cherries and pears. The pear trees haven't quite recovered but cherries came on strong. I put up several quarts of cherries but the real work has been with the apples.

Let me tell ya - we've been up to our eye balls in apples and we haven't even made a dent in what the tree has produced. At first it was a family affair - I would core the apples and everyone else would peel, before long, I was coring, Bailey was peeling. We managed to get five - 5 gallon buckets of apples done.

It started out like this - 5 pounds of peeled apples in the crock pot, 2 teaspoons Allspice, 2 Tablespoons cinnamon, 3 cups sugar, cook for 14 hours on low, blend up smooth, place in piping hot jars and waterbath for 10 minutes - and ended with 1 heaping crock pot of apples, a couple shakes of Allspice, a couple shakes of cinnamon, and pour on the sugar,cook on high for 2-3 hours then put on low because it smelled like apples might be burning, stir with a wisk, dump in jars as fast as you can and waterbath until you remember to take em out.

I put up 27 quarts of apple butter, have given 3 away and devoured 2. Here is the fruit of my labor.

Thank you, Grandma, for teaching me the art of apple butter. Next time I will follow all the rules!