Apple Butter: Making Good Food and Great Friendships

Preparation

Apple butter making usually takes place over a span of several days.  The first couple of days involves the preparation of the apples.  The apples need to be washed, peeled, cored, sliced, checked for missed peel and bad spots and then washed again.  Bushels and bushels of apples and lots of man hours go into this process.  And we have not started to cook them yet!

Cooking and Hardware

Cooking the apples is traditionally done in a large copper kettle.  I have heard of folks using other methods bu

t to make “real” apple butter, especially in large quantities, the copper kettle is the only way to go.  The apples, as they cook, need to be stirred constantly in a back and forth motion.  This is done with a large, wooden paddle (as seen in the photo).  As the stirring is done, the person welding paddle moves, slowly, in a circle around the kettle.  This ensures that no area of the bottom of the kettle is missed, allowing for the cooking apples to burn.  And believe me, if this is not done right you can ruin a kettle of apple butter in a hurry!

Ingredients

The ingredients to make apple butter can be a highly guarded secret.  Obviously apples are needed but the

other ingredients are not necessarily as obvious.  While we are on the subject of apples, there are preferences here, too.  Winesap, Fugi, Gala, and Empire are a few that are popular.  You want something flavorful and in the sweet-tart category.  Most people say that Red and Golden Delicious are not good choices for apple butter though.  Cinnamon is almost always used, sometimes ground and sometimes liquid extract.  Nutmeg is often included in the recipe, too.  Not as obvious is the use, by some of cider vinegar.  Water or apple cider are more often used than vinegar though.  All recipes call for sugar, but it may be brown or white or a combination of the two or, believe it or not, honey.  Cloves and allspice round out the other most common ingredients.

Cooking Day

Cooking, if we are doing it the old-fashioned way, begins early in the morning, usually before sun rise.