THE PRESERVATIONIST

THE PRESERVATIONIST Apple Butter

A no fuss way to make this old-timey treat and fill your home with the aroma of fall

BY JORDAN CHAMPAGNE PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARGAUX GIBBONS

Fruit butters are created by layers of sweet, sour, tart and caramel flavors. This usually means the addition of some kind of sweetener and/or vinegar. The nice thing about fruit butters is that you can use any type of sweetener, as they will turn shades of brown anyway unlike jams, which we try to keep bright. So maple syrup, rapadura, coconut sugar and date sugar all can be used. It is a fun place to experiment.

The flavor of apple butter is such a classic that it can bring one back to a different time and place. When I first started making it, I understood why small towns have apple butter festivals where the entire town gathers to make giant batches in a huge cauldron and stir them with large paddles from afar. It takes A LOT of stirring, and the thickness of the preserve makes for hours of splattering all over the kitchen. It can take a village to raise a child and feed them apple butter! But then I realized that you can pop it in

The smell of apple butter baking in the oven for hours is the best way to warm up a home on a chilly autumn day.

the oven and make the process more gentle and easy for one person at home. Due to the even penetration of heat in the oven from all directions, there is no splattering at all. You can make butters in a slow cooker, too, but the lid needs to be removed to evaporate the liquid, and it will splatter on top, so I prefer the oven.

The smell of apple butter baking in the oven for hours is the best way to warm up a home on a chilly autumn day. There is nothing quite like the taste of apple butter either, that slowly cooked flavor of caramelized sugars with the tartness of apples and vinegar. Apple butter pairs itself nicely with savory flavors, much like chutney and applesauce do. My favorite way to eat apple butter is on a double-toasted piece of sourdough bread with a salty hard cheese such as Manchego.

For this recipe I prefer to choose a mixture of apples that have tart and sweet flavors. Since you are cooking them down into a butter, you can use apples that have blemishes or bruises. It is very forgiving!

Apple Butter

5 pounds apples, cored and chopped into chunks (no need to peel them) 1½ cups apple cider vinegar 1½ cups maple syrup 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine all ingredients in a large pot, cover and simmer over medium heat on the stovetop for 15 minutes or until apples are very soft. Blend the contents until very smooth, either with a high-powered immersion blender or in a Cuisinart.

Next, transfer the purée into two 15-by-10inch glass baking dishes, filling them halfway full. Place the baking dishes in the oven and bake until the purée cooks down to about half the volume and the sugars become brown and caramelized. This can take anywhere from 3–5 hours, depending on how juicy the apples were to start, how sweet they are and how humid the air. Stir the purée occasionally by folding in the top layer and scraping down the sides. You can test the apple butter by placing 1 teaspoon of it on a plate and cooling it in the freezer. The butter should not have any liquid separate from it and should sit tall in a nice pile.

When finished, ladle the apple butter into 8-ounce jars and process in a hot water bath canner for 8 minutes. Fruit butter will keep for two years. Yields 7, 8-ounce jars.

Pear Butter

Pear butter differentiates itself from other fruit butters with its texture. Pears have a naturally gritty quality to them that gives this butter a pleasant chewiness. Pears also have a tendency to develop a glossy sheen when cooked down into a butter, which looks very appetizing. I add maple syrup to this butter instead of cane sugar as it adds depth to the pears, and we are not concerned about the dark color since fruit butters always turn brown due to the carmelized sugars.

Pear butter should be made the same way as apple butter and is perfect with a sharp aged Cheddar.

5 pounds pears 1½ cups maple syrup 2 cups apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Jordan Champagne is the co-owner and founder of Happy Girl Kitchen Co. She has a passion for preserving the local, organic harvest and loves sharing her secrets at workshops she teaches in Pacific Grove and at the Cabrillo College Extension in Aptos.

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