Last Canning Project of the Season??? Honey Apple Butter

This week I made honey apple butter, which was wonderful.  We had been accumulating quite a selection of apples in the refrigerator, and I am almost out of the maple apple butter that I made 2 years ago.  Maple syrup was an incredible accompaniment to apple butter, but it is pretty expensive and I already used my stash of maple syrup in some fabulous maple blueberry jam this summer.  Also, we had our first honey harvest this year and have lots of honey to get creative with!  No problem.  I like a challenge like that.

Sweet Cider Apple Butter, adapted from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving
yield:  about 16 - 8oz. jars (this is a double batch!)

12 pounds apples (I like to use a combination of varieties)
4 cups apple cider
1 quart honey
1 teaspoon cloves
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions:

First, a picture of my little helper/apple thief Molly. 

All the apples went into the sink for a good wash first.  Before I started cutting apples, I put my frozen (from last season) apple cider in an 8 quart stockpot on the stove.  As the cider melted, I quartered, cored and peeled all of the apples, throwing them in the pot to start cooking and soften.  To be honest, I forgot how many apples 12 pounds is!  I wished I had taken out my apple/peeler/corer/slicer to speed up the process.

Once the apples were pretty soft, I took my handy stick blender and pureed the apples until they were nice and smooth.  I like my apple butter silky smooth, so blend them as much as you prefer.  The recipe says not to liquify it.

                                     

Then I added my honey and spices, stirred, turned the stove down to low and cooked slowly all day, stirring occasionally.  See how dark it got?  You just want it to thicken slowly without sticking to the bottom of the pan or popping up and splashing out.  This takes several hours, but the house smells incredible as it cooks.  For some people, the whole process would NOT generally take an entire day to do, but I had many, many distractions and interruptions hanging out with little Molly that it took longer than it would have had I been by myself.  But... by the end of the day it was done and that's what counts!

Once the apple butter cooked down to a consistency I prefer, I processed 8 oz jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner. 

Try a sandwich of cream cheese and honey apple butter on this homemade whole wheat bread... YUM.