Apple Butter

I promised that I would share one of our "Purple mouse" recipes.  We made this Saturday night.  We made Apple butter.  First we peeled, cored and sliced the apples.  We bought this contraption last year when we were planning on making applesauce.  We have not made any apple sauce this year.  It makes things go much faster. 

 Each of the kids got a chance to help.

We had a crock pot full of apples.  Then I added the sugar and spices and mixed it all up. 

You cook the apples on high for an hour. 

This is the apples after about an hour.  Then you let them cook on low for 9-11 hours.  I guess most people do this overnight.  We started the apples in the late afternoon, so they had been cooking several hours by bed time.  I was afraid to let them cook overnight, so I turned my crock pot to the "keep warm" setting.

In the morning they looked like this.  They are a little wet, so you should let them cook with the top off the crock pot for about an hour. 

We run our apple butter through the blender to make it all smooth.

Viola! Apple butter.  We ate some for breakfast (while it was still warm) on some toasted cranberry bread I baked.  Yum yum!

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com:

Apple Butter

5 1/2 lbs apples peeled, cored and chopped

4 Cups of sugar (this is way too much! 

 I used about 1/2 cup of white sugar and a little less than one cup of brown sugar, you could use even less)

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/4 tsp salt

Cook  in crock pot on high for 1 hour.  Reduce to lo for 9-11 hours.  Uncover and cook 1 hr longer.  Mix to smooth.