Autumn Traditions
Nothing personifies autumn quite like the sweetness and spice of fresh apple butter. The name is deceiving, as there’s actually no butter in it at all. Apple butter is really more of a thick jam.
A few weekends ago, my wife, step-son, and a family friend whipped up a batch of this delicious spread in the kitchen.
Cinnamon sticks, cardamom, and cloves were pounded into smaller pieces with a hammer and combined in bags made of cheesecloth. These will be later boiled in a large pot with the cut apples to produce the spicy ambrosia.
The apples, fresh from the orchard, are then washed, sliced, and boiled until soft.
After boiling, the apples are forced through a food mill (as you can see, this one is ancient) that reduces the flesh and the skin of the apple into an applesauce-like paste.
The apple paste is then combined with sugar, two of the spice packets we made earlier, and boiled for a few hours. The fragrance of this is every bit as good as you imagine it to be. Imagine the scent of about ten apple pies baking in the oven at once.
After a couple of hours of boiling the apple and spice mixture has thickened (we don’t use any pectin to thicken) and gets darker from the spices infusing in the apple paste. We then ladled the mixture into canning jars and placed the jars upside down on a towel so the lids sealed.
This, labor intensive process, is calming and gives you an appreciation for what was a part of life for our ancestors. There’s something so rewarding about looking at those jars, enjoying the apple butter on fresh bread with a little grass fed butter, or giving it away as a gift and knowing it was made with your very own hands.
This particular recipe is a family secret, so I can’t share it, but there are plenty of recipes to be found on the internet with a quick search.
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into one of our autumn traditions!
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good post
Thank you!
Ten apple pies in the oven is what Heaven must smell like!It's nice to see people keeping up traditions, especially young people. Yet, I don't think I've ever heard of people in my country ever making apple spreads or jams, although we do have plenty of apples.
I agree, total Heaven! You should try it sometimes, it's great on bread, by itself or with butter. Where you are you from @ladyrebecca?
I'm from Romania. (Now you've made me dreaming of apple pie with lots of cinnamon!)
Yum! Sensually rich process too..I love this about cooking.
It was! The entire space was infused with the scent of spice.
This post reminds me of my grandmother's house where one entire wall of the dining room was shelves just deep enough to fit filled canning jars. And, yes,a family favorite, apple butter, always occupied one of the shelves. I can almost smell the aroma of the apples cooking. LOL
I'm glad this sparked that awesome memory for you! Canning really was a part of life just a few generations ago. Thanks for your comment @team101!
apple butter???? never heard of this before.. but i need some now lol
This is probably a mid-western US thing. I haven't seen it in many other places. If you like apple pie I highly recommend trying it.
My family loves anything apple but apple butter is at the top of the list. They love it on pancakes with toasted walnuts and whipped cream...
Wow, now THAT sounds like an awesome combination. : )
Great blog, I could almost smell apples while reading
Oh YUM, that looks great. Labor intensive is great because it pays off for months to come. Nice photos and stellar ingredients.
Thanks, @lakshmi! Great to hear from you!
:)
OH man I love me some apple butter.🤤 it’s sad how many traditions get lost, but this is a reminder that they are still out there and to get my but in gear and get some recipes from my grandma.
Yeah, it's a good idea to get those recipes before they're lost. It's hard to believe how valuable things like that become to us as we get older.
And the fact that they are down right delicious 🤤
Looks delicious man! definitely going to try in this autumn.. feeling hungry!