Home Grown Apple Butter

Description

Our little farm boasts one single apple tree, just one of the many gifts left behind by the previous residents. Every third year or so our one little tree decides to produce prolifically. This year was a pretty good year, enough to keep our chickens very happy with the windfall (and with our wind, that’s a lot of fall!) as well as more than enough to provide us with the makins for our first hint of fall… apple butter!

We don’t spray for bugs, so I spend a lot of time at the sink cutting out the spots. But the pollinators are ecstatic all year long, and that’s more than worth the trouble.

My recipe is a no peel recipe, leaving the most nutritious part of the fruit. It roasts overnight in a turkey roaster, caramelizing and absorbing the yummy spices while the pulverized peel tenderly melts into the smooth butter. Unfortunately, my stock is limited by my stock of apples. I have been known to use store-bought apples for special orders and am glad to do it, but the cream of the crop comes from our single, stalwart little tree on the prairie.

$7.50/pint (home grown sold out for 2023, store bought made to order)