Aftermath of a Fall Outing: The Apple Butter Saga

Like many seductive things, the early days of a New England fall are very dangerous.  The leaves begin to turn, and when a breeze catches them, they flutter down like gold tipped confetti.  It’s cool enough for a turtleneck but warm enough for bare ankles, a combination that feels vaguely Kennedy-esque.  And on some particularly buoyant, blue day, while sipping warm cider on the deck of your favorite café, you remember that in an orchard just outside the city, rosy Winesaps and succulent Honeycrisps are reaching their peak ripeness.

And you lean over to your companion and say “We should go apple picking next weekend.  Remember how much fun it was last year?”

Now, if your companion is of the practical, kill-joying bent, he would remind you of what happened last year, with the apple butter.  But my companion is not like that.  In fact, I’m pretty convinced that my companion was a farmer in a previous life, so apple picking is right up his alley.

So, we went again this year, this time with Leo, Grandma, and Gido, and when I came out with just one bushel bag, Aaron gave me the puppy dog eyes until I went in and got another.  And we picked apples and had a jolly good time.  And when we got home, we marveled, “Look at all these apples!”

Then, over the following weeks, after we’d eaten enough apples to repel the medical profession for a decade, the marvel turned to despair.  ::sigh::  “Look at all these apples.”  It was like having one of those weird paintings with eyes that follow you across the room, as if to ask “Are you just going to leave us here to rot on the kitchen floor?”

We're watching you

No, I think to myself.  No, I guess not.  I guess it’s time for apple butter.

Making apple butter is not hard.  Any monkey could make apple butter.  Scratch that—monkeys have too much intellect and curiosity.  You need something a little duller, a little dead behind the eyes.  A cow.  Any cow (who could be trained to wield a vegetable peeler) could make apple butter.

Step one is peeling, coring, and chopping a whole hell of a lot of apples.  This is by far the worst part.  It’s simultaneously slippery and sticky work.  Or, more accurately, it’s slippery at first, when your hands get covered in apple juice, and then sticky as the juice dries into an industrial strength adhesive.  And it just takes so long.  I couldn’t tell you how many apples I actually go through.  Counting would just be too depressing.  Basically, I take the biggest pot in my kitchen and start filling it with apples.  When it gets up to the handles, I stop.  Here’s a good rule of thumb: when you find yourself losing the will to live, you only need about four or five more apples.

See this thing?

Fill it with these things.

Next is the revenge stage of apple butter.  Take your big pot of apples, add 2 cups of cider and 4 cups of water, put it on high heat, cover it, and boil the ever-loving crap out of it.  The only thing that would make it more perfect is if the apples screamed for mercy like lobsters.

When you’ve satisfied yourself that the apples are sufficiently dead (35-45 minutes), turn off the heat and let it cool a bit.  Then, if you have one, get out your immersion blender.  This may be my favorite weapon in the kitchen arsenal.   It’s commercial grade (interestingly enough, made by the same company that makes Aaron’s hair trimmer), more like a power tool than an appliance.  It rarely comes out more than once a month, but ohh, when it does.  The whole pot is pureed in about a minute.  Those apples didn’t stand a chance!

Say 'allo to my leetle friend!

Then the whole thing gets moved to the slow cooker, where I stir in the following: 1 cup white sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar, a generous capful of vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon cloves, a healthy pinch of salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper.  The point is to reduce this down to a dark brown, which in my slow cooker, uncovered on high heat, takes about nine hours.  So turn it on, and go get on with your life.

Like buttah.

As much work as it is, I will say that the finished product is pretty terrific.  Sweet, spicy, with just a tang of heat.  It’s good over ice cream.  It makes a nice glaze for roast pork.  It even makes oatmeal downright palatable.  But, for my money, the best use of apple butter is in what I like to call a Butter-Butter Sandwich.  Imagine, if you will, that the grilled cheese and the PB&J had a torrid New Year’s love affair.  The Butter-Butter would be their autumn lovechild: peanut butter and apple butter, grilled between two pieces of buttered challah bread.  So good.