Homemade apple butter!  How very domestic of me.  But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.  You see, my favorite Thanksgiving pumpkin pie recipe includes apple butter as an ingredient.

This year, I went looking for apple butter at my local grocery, and could only find a tiny pint size jar- for $5!

So I decided to make it myself.    It’s not hard- just takes time.

You need applesauce and spices, and something to make it sweet.  Also, a Crock-Pot
or slow cooker.

I buy the all natural unsweetened applesauce- you know, the kind without HFCS and made out of apples, so in order to make a richly flavored apple butter I needed to add some sugar.   If you buy sweetened applesauce, you can skip this step.

Applebutter usually has cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.  I decided to use my homemade Pumpkin Pie Spice recipe, which also has ginger.

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Prop the lid of the crockpot to let steam escape- I usually use a couple of chopsticks, just like I do for my crockpot granola recipe. You could also use a couple of butter knives, too.

Taste it and add sweetener to taste if needed.  Store in the fridge (or can it in jelly jars).  I find that making apple butter from a 3 lb. jar (5 cups) of applesauce yields approximately 2 1/2 cups of apple butter.

Yum!

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