Yesterday, for the first time ever in my entire life, I canned. I've been watching my mom can jam for years, so it wasn't a totally foreign process to me, but I had never done it on my own from start to finish before. I don't think words can express just how satisfying it was to hear the snap when the cans sealed. When they were all finished, I kept going into the kitchen to tap on the lids, just to hear the pleasing dull ring that means that they were properly sealed.
The reason I was canning is that I started a batch of apple-pear (the apples were the last of the ones that Scott and I picked for the second episode of Slashfood in the Kitchen) butter on Tuesday that took until Wednesday to finish. Sadly I was overconfident and didn't call my mom for advice. Had I touched base with her before I started, I would have been reminded that she cooks the apples for a bit and then strains them in a small-holed colander for a while to get some of the liquid out before pureeing and cooking them down. The way I did it, it took nearly 10 hours of cooking before it had simmered down to the right consistency (my stove didn't help matters as it doesn't do the long, slow simmer very well). However, it doesn't matter, as it all turned out and I now have five jars of really delicious apple-pear butter to give as gifts this holiday season.
I don't really have a recipe to offer you, as all I did was cook down about 30 peeled and cored apples, along with 5 pears. I put in cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and lemon juice to taste and cooked and cooked and cooked. I only put in 1/4 of a cup of sugar, because I think that it's naturally sweet just as it is. At about hour three, I pureed it with my underpowered immersion blender to get a smoother consistency.
If you're looking for more specific apple butter recipes I suggest you take at look at this one at Simply Recipes. Elise's recipes tend to work really well, so I would feel confident that this one won't lead you astray. Although I find the four cups of sugar she calls for heart-stoppingly sweet.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-06-2007 @ 11:54AM
Elise said...
Sugar is needed as a preservative, and also to help the gel-ing when you are canning jams. If you use less sugar, the jam will not store as long. With only a quarter cup, I would recommend eating up the apple pear butter within a couple months. If you use the amount of sugar my recipe calls for (it also has vinegar to balance out the sweetness), the jam will store for a couple of years.
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12-06-2007 @ 1:08PM
Helen said...
That sounds just right in the sugar department. Some of the stuff you can buy is painfully sweet!
I used to have an apartment oven that was a royal pain about long simmers, too, so I learned to cheat: simmer the stuff in the oven. Go to a hardware or any place that will have one of those unglazed terra cotta plant-saucer things you put under the giant planters. Put it in the bottom of your oven, or the bottom rack. Instant heat regulator! You still have to open the oven every 10 minutes to give it a stir, but the terra cotta saucer acts like a heat battery.
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12-07-2007 @ 4:21AM
brendansullivan said...
You should try using a Crock Pot/Slow Cooker the next time you make Apple (or other fruit) Butters. Just place your ingredients in, whack it on high and let it go. You'll be ready to siv in 6-8 hours and you won't have to pay attention to it at all!
My brother and I make my Grandmothers Apple Butter every fall and produce about 46-64 pints in a weekend by borrowing all of my friends Crock Pots. Everyone things we must be in the kitchen for the whole weekend, but we aren’t. We go hiking, kayaking while waiting for the next batch.
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