Daring Cooks: Apple Butter

"The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation."

I had tons of fun with this challenge. Not only was canning fun, but a bunch of our friends are also into canning right now so we made a bunch of stuff. First, Apple Butter, for the Daring Cook's Challenge. And then we made peach pepper jelly, spicy green beans, whole tomatoes and tomato sauce! And with apples coming into season soon I can see more canning in our future.

For the apple butter I used a recipe very similar recipe to the one that John of Eat4Fun suggested, with some minor changes. The apple butter turned out to be very spice tasting and very thick and spreadable. I loved the taste and it reminded me very much of Fall. We will definitely be using a lot of our apple butter this Fall and we are also hoping to cook some dinners using it as well.
I hope that some of you readers will also give canning a try (if you haven't already!) :)

Apple Butter
Makes 18 jars of various sizes
Found on RecipeTips.com

Ingredients:
4 pounds apples (Various kinds if possible)
2 cups sugar
1 cup apple cider
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1 lemon, juice and zest

Directions:
1. Peel, core, and cut up the apples.
2. Combine apples with cider, sugar, salt, spices and lemon. Cook over low heat stirring frequently until the apples are soft and and the mixture becomes very thick. (Test by scooping up a heaping spoonful. The mixture should keep its rounded shape and not flatten out.)
4. Use a hand blender to blend the mixture until smooth.

Canning the Apple Butter

1. Put jars and caps in the oven on a cookie sheet, open side up, at 200 degrees F until for at least 10 minutes (but longer is ok).
2. You need a pot that will let you add the jars with 1 inch or water above them (and a rack below to the jars are not on direct heat).
3. Take jars out of oven and fill with apple butter leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
4. Put the lids on a screw tight by hand (not too tighly as the air needs to escape in the water).
5. Add jars to pot of boling water. Bring the water back to the boil and time for 15 minutes.
6. Take jars out of water and let them cool down on a dish towel. If you hear the jars popping, that's good (they are sealing).
7. Check to see if all the lids have popped. If so you can now store your apple butter.
8. Make sure to check the lid before opening the apple butter. If it is bulging, or the apple butter has changed in colour, etc, then throw it out!