{"id":1507,"date":"2011-11-06T03:11:27","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T10:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2011-11-06T18:28:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T01:28:32","slug":"1507","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/?p=1507","title":{"rendered":"Apple Butter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Apple<\/a>

Apple Butter (Yes, I ate some, and no, I'm not ashamed.)<\/p><\/div>\n

The September 2010 Daring Cooks\u2019 challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun<\/a>. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John\u2019s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Total Time: About 4 hours.<\/p>\n

6 apples, washed with skins and cores removed
\n1\/2 cup apple cider
\n1\/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar
\n2 tsp ground cinnamon
\n1\/4 tsp ground allspice
\npinch (1\/8 tsp) of ground cloves<\/p>\n

Makes about 2 cups of apple butter.<\/p>\n

Cut apples into slices.<\/p>\n

Combine apple slices and apple cider in a large saucepan. Cook slowly and stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Cook until apples are very soft (falling apart).<\/p>\n

Gently mash the apples in the pot with your spoon or potato masher. (Alternatively, you could: Position a food mill or strainer securely over a large bowl. Press cooked apples with cider through the food mill or strainer to make a pulp. Be sure to collect all the pulp that comes through the food mill or strainer; for example, scrape any pulp clinging under the food mill into the bowl.)<\/p>\n

Add brown sugar and spices to your apple pulp. Simmer over low heat, stirring frequently. When cooking down the apples, you want to leave the lid ajar or use a splatter screen. This will allow for evaporation. Another trick is to support the lid by laying two wooden spoons across the top of the pot.<\/p>\n

To test for doneness, spoon a small quantity onto a clean plate; when the butter mounds on the plate without liquid separating around the edge of the butter, it is ready for processing. Another way to test for doneness is to remove a spoonful of the cooked butter on a spoon and hold it away from steam for 2 minutes. It is done if the butter remains mounded on the spoon.<\/p>\n

Pour contents into desired storage container or multiple containers. Refrigerate up to 2 weeks, freeze up to a year, or home canning is good for a year.<\/p>\n

I never took my apples or apple butter mix out of the pot until the very end. I used a really sturdy pot, and I could tell it was done when I moved the spoon through the apple butter and everything *stayed in place*. That might have been overcooked, but it also made the apple butter very sweet and flavorful.<\/p>\n

This recipe is a half batch. A full batch is 12 apples, 1 cup cider, 1\/2 cup sugar, 1 Tbsp cinnamon, 1\/2 tsp allspice and 1\/4 tsp cloves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweet, cinnamon rich apple butter for spreading, dipping, or just eating with a spoon. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,45,36],"tags":[52,38,28,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/recipes.cuppylicious.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}