As sad it is to see summer go, let’s welcome sweater weather, changing leaves and celebrating Fall with the flavours of the season. This is the first Fall season I am experiencing in my new home, and I am so excited to make several different recipes with the apples from the tree in my backyard.

From my research, there are a lot of different varieties of apple/crab-apple trees. While most are quite sour and tangy, the apples from my tree are tart but taste more like a green apple rather… than the typical crab-apple which are too tart to enjoy on their own.

With the number of apples, I was able to harvest, I decided to do a crab-apple spin on recipes that you could do with regular apples.


The first recipe I’m going to share with you is Crab-apple Butter. *Disclaimer, there is no butter in this. Apple Butter is simply a more concentrated version of apple sauce (a little thicker and a little sweeter). It can be used on anything that you could use jam with, like muffins or toast. I love the flavours it gives when it is used as a marinade for chicken, pork, or even as a dipping sauce. You can even use it as chutney and it’s a perfect addition to a charcuterie or cheese board.

The best part about this recipe is it is super easy. Once the prep work is done, all you would have to do is put everything in a slow cooker and come back to it a few hours later.

ingredients

  • 5 pounds of apples (quartered and cored)

  • 1 1/2 cups of sugar

  • juice of 1 lemon

  • 1/2 cups of water

  • 1/4 teaspoon of salt

  • splash of vanilla (optional)

directions

The longest part of this recipe is quartering and coring the apples. If you have an apple corer, this will save you a lot of time. Once that is done, put it in the slow cooker with the water, lemon juice, sugar and vanilla (optional). If you have other sugar alternatives you would like to use, go for it. I used coconut sugar for this batch, but have also used a mix of white and brown sugar and had the same results.

Cook in a slow cooker on high for 2 hours and then use an immersion blender to blend the mixture. If you don’t have one, I would recommend processing the mixture in a blender. Once it is smooth, pour the mixture back in the slow cooker on high for another 5 hours. This would allow the flavours to come out and gives the sugars a chance to caramelize. The longer you allow the mixture to cook, the more glossy and creamy it will turn out.

Not only is the apple butter delicious, but it will also give your home a beautiful scent while it is cooking. Once it is ready, pour into glass jars and they can be refrigerated for a month. You can also can them for longer shelf life but would not recommend freezing the butter since the consistency will be different when defrosted.

Hope you enjoy it and stay tuned for more Fall recipes.

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