~Tastes like the Amish did it~

Or the Mennonites, or your grandma, or that lil' ol' flea market you went to as a kid - whatever! - it's DELISH!!

It's Homemade Apple Butter!

I got this recipe (and wonderful pics) from an IRL friend:  Danielle @ Finally Finding Me...I Think

I *so* love apple butter - only get it here and there, when we happen to come across some at a market or an orchard or something.  Maybe once a year, seriously.  Yet I was kinda doubtful that any recipe I could make at home just wouldn't be *quite* as good.  Ha ~ I was WRONG!

Here's the recipe - with some pics to show you how it looks along the way:

So, you start with 9 apples (my friend's were red, mine were yellow - didn't seem to matter), cored, peeled and chopped up.  Throw 'em in your crock pot.

Now, add in all the other ingredients and mix well:  9 apples, sugar (use 2 cups), cinnamon (use 2 teaspoons), ground cloves (use 1/4 teaspoon) and salt (use 1/4 teaspoon).

Then all I did was turn my CP on HIGH for an hour or two - then down to LOW for the rest of the time.  All together, you want this to cook for about 12-14 hours, depending on how hot your CP is.  Mine is pretty hot, so I only did it for about 12 hours, my friend did hers for 13 plus she mashed a few big chunks out at the end.

You have to stir the ingredients every hour - so pick a day when you don't have anywhere to go - and stir away.

Here is my apple butter after having cooked for about 1 hour or so.

Here it is after a few more hours.

And here is my apple butter, very late at night (cause I got a late start that day.....as usual...ahem), after about 12 hours of cooking.

I then took the lid off and let it cool for a while (while I watched some Special Features on our Netflix movie).  I then scraped it into two glass jars I had and voila!!  APPLE BUTTER!!

The big jar is a peanut butter jar, while the little one if from salsa.  I like to keep my glass jars when we are finished with an item "just in case".

Here it is the next morning, right before I spread it on my toast:

*argh....my butter wasn't soft that morning and I didn't have any patience to wait.

The results?  FABULOUS!  The taste?  Exactly as I remember from the Amish ~ YUM!!