Slow cooker apple butter
Instructions:
- Have ready two 1-quart jars, four 1-pint jars, or eight half-pint jars that have been sterilized in boiling water or run through the dishwasher on the hottest cycle. The jars should have sterilized tight-fitting lids. The jars and lids do not have to stay hot, but they must stay sterile.
- Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples. Toss them with the sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, and salt.
- Pack the mixture into a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Be sure that your cooker is at least two-thirds full of raw apples to ensure that they will cook properly. Likewise, don’t fill the cooker so full that the lid does not sit flat on the rim.
- Cover and cook on high for 1 hour. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the apples are completely soft and broken down, 8 to 12 hours. Remove the lid, increase the heat to high, and cook until almost all of the liquid has evaporated, about 1 hour. Stir in the vinegar.
- Puree in a blender (working in batches to not fill the blender more than half full) or puree directly in the cooker with an immersion blender.
- Ladle the hot apple butter into the prepared jars and cover tightly. Set aside to cool to room temperature, and then refrigerate for up to 6 weeks.
- Variation: to make apple and sweet potato butter, replace 2 pounds of the apples with peeled and sliced sweet potatoes. To make pear butter, substitute Kieffer pears.