Are you tired of spending more on apple butter or interested in learning a new homemade recipe to add to your cookbook? You could quickly learn a lot from this short guide on how to prepare natural apple butter in minutes.
Imagine allowing all that fruit to get spent during fall when you can put them to good use as a spread for your baked foods. The easy part is that getting the ingredients, which is the raw apple, is not hard.
There are a lot of things you can enjoy with apple butter spread. They are great on bread, toast, cones, and I even add them to my pie.
Another reason you want to consider this simple recipe is that it is entirely safe for you. It is non-fattening, and you don’t have to worry about much sugars or any chemical additives. It is entirely natural.
You are free to find out all you need to know about apple butter and then take it up from there.
Apple Butter Recipe
About Ingredients
You know you will need apples—a lot of them. For this recipe, we will need four pounds of fresh red. You can also make use of the green variety, but I am used to picking sweet reds, so let us go with that.
Also, you will need apple cider vinegar to serve as a preservative. I have found many online recipes that don’t include a natural preservative in the mix. If you intend to make a large batch of fresh homemade fruit butter, you want to use one.
Other ingredients include brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cloves. I do use a few drops of lemon juice to uplift it with a hint of citrus. Just so we are clear, below is a list of ingredients for my natural homemade apple butter.
Ingredient List
- Sweet Apples – 4 pounds of fresh red ~ 9 medium-sized fruits
- 1 cup of apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
- 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
- 3/4 light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Before we Begin
Once you have gathered all the ingredients, the next step is to
- Peel the skin off the fruits and then score each one of them before slicing. If you haven’t grounded the cinnamon and cloves, you want to do that before heading to the next stage, which is the preparation.
Preparation
- Pack the apples, cider vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and salt in a cooking pot.
- Set the heat temperature at low – medium so you can take control over the cooking.
- As the ingredients are cooking, you will need to stir them at intervals. They should become soft in 40 minutes to an hour, depending on the heat used.
- Once done, the next thing is to blend the mixture until it turns to puree. I make use of a hand blender, so I have to do it in batches.
- Once blended, recook the puree with the same heat temperature until it is velvety, thick, and has a deep mahogany brown colour. This should take another 40 minutes to an hour.
- The last step is to add in our lemon juice to spice things up.
- By now, your natural homemade apple butter should be ready.
- Pack it into a tightly sealed glass jar and store in the refrigerator.
Recipe Notes
There are so many ways you can use your homemade butter. I enjoy them in my amazing lemon zucchini bread. They are also great for scones, cakes, biscuits, and other food where you require a spread.
Cakedecorist
Karen Rutherford is founder and editor in chief at Cakedecorist. You will often find her in the kitchen, creating edible works of art or trying out some new recipes. As a pâtissière and baking enthusiast, Karen has decided to share her abundant knowledge with the internet audience and provide only the best tips and recipes for baking and decorating your favourite sweets
