But applesauce is easy. If you’ve never made it, you are really missing out, if only for the amazing aroma of spicy sweet cinnamon apples that will lovingly settle into every room of your house on the day you make it. It really is worth it, if only for that.
But it’s not just that. Homemade applesauce made from just picked apples (either off the tree or from the grocery store apple display) tastes really good too, and you can make it with as much or as little sugar as you want, and you can make it as smooth or as chunky as you want. It also freezes well (which is good for me, because I don’t know how to can things).
Which apples are good for applesauce? Sweet apples are the best, like Red Delicious, Gala, Honeycrisp, Yellow Delicious, etc. (I didn’t know that…I googled it for you. You’re welcome). Today I am using Galas.
So here are the basics.
First you need to peel and cut up some apples, although I do it the other way (cut then peel)*. I use my apple slicer, slice (and core) the apple into its individual slices, and then I use a paring knife to remove the peel from each slice. That to me is easier than peeling a whole apple. But as my mother says to me (frequently) “You do what you want, you will anyway.”
*If you have a fancy sieve meant for grinding up apples, you do not need to peel the apples,the sieve will strain them out of the finished product and your applesauce may turn a lovely pink color if you use red apples.
After I remove the peel from the slice, I cut the slice into halves or thirds and then put it right in my crockpot. Today I had a helper who cut all of those apple slices for me. We have a safety knife that I think I got from Pampered Chef that he uses when he decides to play chef.
Cut up as many apples as it takes to fill up your crockpot, I think mine took about 20. Then add the following to your crockpot:
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar (white or brown, I usually use 1/4 cup brown, and 3/4 c. white sugar), you can also use less sugar than this. The kids love it, but I’m starting to think it’s a bit too sweet in my old age. I might lower it to 3/4 c. next time.
1 T. cinnamon
Stir it up a bit and turn your crockpot on low. You can let it cook overnight if you want. My recipe tells me it needs to cook for 3-4 hours, but the apples don’t seem soft enough after that amount of time. 6-8 hours is how long I usually cook them. You can stir this occasionally if you want, but you don’t need to.
After you’ve cooked it long enough, stir it and smoosh it up with a spoon or some kind of smoosher (I believe that is the technical term. You can look it up. But I wouldn’t.) If you want a really smooth applesauce, you can put this in your food processor and quickly smooth it up that way!
We like ours pretty chunky. We ate some of it with dinner, but some of it I put in containers to freeze individually for school lunches.
See? Easy peasy.
By the way, if you leave it a little chunky, you can make these using crescent rolls and a teaspoon of applesauce…just pinch up the ends when you roll them up so the applesauce doesn’t leak out, and bake for the time the package says. Yum!I thought I’d end this post with a nice apple quote, and I found some good ones like "Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits." -- Henry David Thoreau, but then I found this one:
"Thy breath is like the steame of apple-pyes." Robert Greene (1590)
…and I don’t know if Mr. Greene meant it to be a dig to his chubby wife or romantic, but it made me think I might just have to say this to Dave the next time he comes in for a kiss. Which led me to think of other cool things to tell him his breath is like:
Thy breath is like a stale mug o’ coffee.
Thy breath is like the starchy Pringle chip thou ate two minutes yon.
Thy breath is like a deadeth possum, go brush.
Thy breath is like the cool Arctic mint of the paste of the tooth… thou mayest proceed.
Anyway, may all your kisses be like the steame of apple-pyes and may thou be no dummy when making thine applesauce.
I am linking this recipe with Foodie Friday!
2 comments:
Dear Beth, you warm my heart. At the beginning of this post I was having a panic attack because I forgot to ask my grandma what kind of apples she used in her delicously smooth and so, so sweet applesauce. Such a simple question to ask... it would have been a 30 second conversation that would have given me her applesause for life. BUT, by the end of your post I was laughing out loud. You are hysterical, and really... my mom probably knows what kind she used! You have inspired me to give it a try. Thank you!
We have the same Pampered Chef knife! It's such a fun knife for kids, if that is even possible. The girls and I are making your applesauce recipe right now! It's a fun activity when you are stuck at home due to widespread flooding! We are safe and dry here, but a lot of roads around town are closed. How are you faring?
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