Clove

Apple Butter

Apple Butter

Apple Butter

Our recent trip to the apple orchard with my daughter’s Girl Scout troop was a lot of fun. Just like last time we were there, there were not too many apples left to pick from the trees any more, but there were a lot of apples of all sorts already bagged and inviting us, apple-hungry city dwellers, to buy them in truckloads. We ended up buying 4 huge bags, which means 1 bag per person! We’ve been enjoying them as is ever since and I’ve also been putting them to good culinary uses.

For example, one day I made apple butter. Apple butter is really what we would call apple jam in Azerbaijan, but it is perhaps a bit denser and thicker than jam. But don’t be fooled by the name—there is NO BUTTER in the recipe! It’s just the silky, buttery texture of the jam that gave the name to it.

You can find tons of recipes for apple butter on the Internet and in numerous cookbooks. Mine is the amalgamation of a dozen recipes that I have tweaked and refined to suit my needs. For instance, I do not discard of the apple peel and core; I make them into apple cider (required to make apple butter) instead of making apple cider from whole apples, and off they go in the pan with peeled apples to cook together.

Try this recipe. Make apple butter.  Slather it onto a slice of warm toast in the morning, afternoon or evening, and enjoy. Viva apples!

Apples in a Bucket

Apples of all colors floating in a huge bucket of water in the apple orchard – to be pressed into delicious apple cider.

Apples in a Bucket

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