Monday, October 19, 2009

Homemade Applesauce

My mom motivated me to try making homemade applesauce, and it was a huge hit. Mom brought me some apples, and my very nice neighbor had given me some apples they'd picked at the orchard last week, so I started with about 2 dozen apples. Here is the very easy recipe.

Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce

1 dozen apples
3/4 cup water
Cinnamon to taste (I used about 1 tsp)

  1. Core and peel your apples. We also cut ours in half even after using the apple corer, thinner slices = less cooking time.
  2. Put apples in a large pot and pour in the water. The water should definitely *not* cover the apples, just add enough to cover the bottom of your pot. Your apples will cook down and add more water after simmering.
  3. Simmer on medium low for approx. 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  4. Once apples are mashable (check with a fork), put them in a blender or food processor. I blended about a cup at a time. I used the ice crusher/pulse button on my blender, then used the liquefy button after they were sufficiently chopped up. Mom just mashes hers with a potato masher, but I wanted mine less chunky. (Add more of the water from the pot to make your sauce runnier, less to make it thicker.)
  5. Cool and eat.
I made two batches - one last night and one this morning. We froze the batch we made last night. We shared half of this morning's batch with our Monday Fun-day buddies (thanks for the name, Jesse!) and gave the other half to a friend who helped me with a huge sewing project. Each batch probably made 12-16 cups of applesauce. The boys LOVED it; Kieran had 3 servings after we painted this morning.


Helping Grandma start the applesauce


What made it even better is that Kieran helped us make it. He put the apple slices in the pot and then helped me push the buttons on the blender. It was a fun family activity. What a yummy way to usher in the fall!

7 comments:

  1. Of course you would have had MORE out of the first batch if Kieran didn't take a bite out of every other piece of apple as he put them in the pot!!!
    I am so glad this was a hit....I wanted to do something fun and memory making with Kieran and you!!!!

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  2. that's it? I Don't know whu, but it always seemed like it would be harder. I need to get one of those corers.

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  3. I was totally thinking of doing this too, but, I was going to get them good and boiled down and let tater smash some of them in a plastic baggy, won't do a good job of saucing them, but good enough.

    That an put red hots in them. Because red hot applesauce is my BFF!

    And at least Kieran was eating the apples, Amelia has an affinity for eating the raw potatoes when we make mashed taters. I think she would eat the whole thing raw, if we let her.

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  4. This is fantastic applesauce. Delicious! Thank you so much for sharing with us. I need to get the blender part ordered so that I can make some after we go to the orchard next week (my husband broke a small part pushing down on it, trying to make a double batch of crepe batter). And then there are the pie pumpkins, just waiting to be baked and pureed into yummy goodness. I love Fall!

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  5. I used to make my own applesauce a lot too - want some tips that I figured out over time? I found steaming them to be better than boiling - I used my veggie steamer, but you could also use a steamer insert or one of those microwave steamer things - I thought it was even more flavorful steamed than boiled. It also required less attention to water levels, etc. and I think, if I remember correctly, it was a bit quicker. Also, one day I was feeling lazy, and didn't peel my apples first - just cooked and smooshed peel and all, and it worked fine...the texture was slightly changed, but not in a bad way - so I never peeled again - BUT sometimes, when I was doing it for little babies and didn't want the peel, I would still steam the apples in the peel, and then just scrape them out of the peel before blending them - that was dramatically quicker than peeling by hand. And it sometimes added a nice pink tinge to the applesauce ;-) And I never left any apple still attached to the peel, like I did when I would peal them by hand. You just let them cool enough to handle, and the apple scraps right away from the peel using a spoon. Super quick and easy.

    Yum!

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  6. Deanna - next time I will try with the peel :)
    I think what I am doing *is* steaming them - they aren't boiling, and there's so little water added that I believe the purpose is to steam them. Maybe mom can chime in here.

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