Made From Scratch: Slow Cooker Maple-Bourbon Applesauce

Take a lot of apples, add in a little maple syrup and a shot of bourbon, and with the help of your slow cooker, you'll make some really delicious applesauce.

One of my favorite fall activities is hitting up one of our local apple orchards and picking a peck of apples. This year we had the foresight to visit our favorite orchard on a weekday afternoon, which meant we weren't tripping over crowds of other people, or, perhaps more importantly, have to wait in long lines to get tasty apple treats.

Because, okay, yes, I'm there for picking apples ... but I'm also there (okay, maybe mostly there??) for the delicious freshly-baked apple treats, including apple cider donuts (a must!). This year we started our apple orchard visit with some sweet sustenance – I had a slice of caramel apple pie and hot apple cider while Dustin enjoyed an apple dumpling and hot coffee. Fully satiated, we grabbed a bag for our apples.

This year we picked a peck of cortland apples, which have a sweet and slightly tart flavor – perfect for applesauce. Once back at home, I made a couple different batches of slow cooker applesauce. Each of the batches produced about 2 1/2 pints of applesauce. Instead of canning, I opted to freeze the applesauce I made. It should keep in the freezer for up to three months. Though theoretically you can use glass canning jars in the freezer, I've had bad luck with breakage in the past, so I've been using these plastic freezer jars from Ball instead.

Slow Cooker Maple-Bourbon Applesauce
makes just over 2 pints

4-5 pounds apples, any variety
1/2 cup apple cider
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon bourbon
pinch fine sea salt
3 (4-inch) cinnamon sticks

1. Wash the apples. Core, peel, and slice each apple. (I love my handy dandy apple peeler/corer/slicer machine.)
2. Place the sliced apples into the bowl of a slow cooker.
3. Pour in the cider, lemon juice, maple syrup, and bourbon. Sprinkle with salt and stir to combine. Add in the cinnamon sticks. (I like to bury them in the apples.)
4. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours. Stir occasionally.
5. Use an immersion blender to puree the applesauce to a smoother texture if you prefer. Spoon the applesauce into freezer-safe containers. Let the sauce cool slightly before placing the lids on each container and placing them in the freezer. Applesauce can be kept frozen for up to 3 months.

Ready to Can: Large Batch Applesauce

Last Monday, D and I headed to Weaver's Orchard in Morgantown, Pennsylvania to do some apple-picking. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating, so in lieu of picking apples in the rain, we opted to purchase a pre-picked half-bushel of Jonamac apple seconds instead -- perfect for sauce making. I've always been a fan of homemade applesauce -- when I was little, we had a few apple trees in our backyard, and batches of homemade sauce were made from the bounty in the fall. The sauce was preserved by freezing; I think up until a fairly recent power outage (and one move later), my parents still had at least one Tupperware container of that homemade applesauce in the freezer.

Because we had such a large amount of apples, we cooked up half the applesauce in a slow-cooker, and the other half in a large stockpot on the stove. The stovetop applesauce cooked up faster than the batch in the slow cooker, but since we were planning to can the sauce on a different day, it didn't matter much. We finally got around the canning the sauce this Saturday, after bringing both batches of sauce back to a boil. I've already cracked into one quart -- the applesauce is delicious -- slightly sweet with a subtle cinnamon flavor. Only seven more jars to go!

Large Batch Applesauce (printer-friendly version)
makes about 8 quarts

1/2 bushel Jonamac apples (about 42 small apples), washed, cored, peeled (keep the peels), and sliced
2 C hot water
juice from six lemons
6 T brown sugar
4 cinnamon sticks

1. Wash the apples. Core, peel, and slice each apple.
2. Save the peels and puree them in a food processor.
3. Place the diced apples in a 4 qt slow cooker bowl or large stock pot. Add in the pureed peels.
4. Pour in the water and lemon juice.
5. Add in the brown sugar and cinnamon sticks. (Or season to your preference.)
6. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 4-6 hours. If cooking on the stove, set the temperature to low, and bring the sauce to a simmer.
7. Stir every half hour or so.
8. Once the applesauce has come to a consistency that you prefer (the stovetop sauce took about 2-3 hours; the slow cooker took about 4-6 hours), add any additional seasoning if necessary, and then you are ready to can!

You can find the steps for boiling water canning here. Use these guidelines for determining your processing time (here in Philadelphia we processed the quarts for 20 minutes, given that we live at an elevation of less than 1000 feet).

Made From Scratch: Applesauce v. 2.0

A few days after I made my first batch of applesauce (and subsequently turned it into apple butter), I decided to make another batch. This time around I used my handy-dandy apple corer/peeler/slicer machine to peel the apples. I saved the peels and pureed them in the food processor, and then added them into the slow cooker bowl along with the apple slices. This time around I just seasoned the apples with some brown sugar and a couple of cinnamon sticks. I let the apples cook on low for about five hours. This recipe makes a nice chunky apple sauce --a great option for the mid-afternoon munchies.

Homemade Applesauce 2.0 (printer-friendly version)

makes about 5 cups

3 lbs organic apples (about 10 small apples), washed, cored, peeled, and sliced

1/2 cup hot water

juice from organic lemon

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

1. Wash the apples. Core, peel, and slice each apple.

2. Save the peels and puree them in a food processor.

3. Place the diced apples in a 4 qt slow cooker bowl. Add in the pureed peels.

4. Pour in the water and lemon juice.

5. Add in the brown sugar and cinnamon sticks. (Or season to your preference.)

6. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 4-6 hours.

7. Remove the cinnamon sticks.

8. Spoon into a jar and store in the fridge.

Made From Scratch: Applesauce

This past weekend it appeared that a lot of my friends were hitting up the local apple orchards, as a lot of Facebook status updates mentioned apple butter, applesauce, and apple cider. Though there aren't any apple orchards near to Laramie, I didn't let this fact thwart me. Instead, I headed to the local Safeway and bought a bag of organic gala apples. Once home I set to work making applesauce -- I decided to use my slow cooker as I didn't have any desire to babysit a big pot of sauce simmering away on the stovetop. I set the slow cooker to "low" around 5 p.m. and let it cook overnight -- wow, the house smelled great in the morning! A quick whirl of the immersion blender, and the applesauce was ready to eat. It tasted just like a mouthful of Autumn.

Homemade Applesauce (printer-friendly version)

makes about 5 cups

3 lbs organic apples (about 10 small apples)

1/2 cup hot water

juice from organic lemon

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon anise seeds

2 cinnamon sticks

1. Wash the apples. Core and quarter each apple. (You can also peel the apples if desired.) Place the diced apples in a 4 qt slow cooker bowl.

2. Pour in the water and lemon juice.

3. Add in the brown sugar, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, anise seeds, and cinnamon sticks. (Or season to your preference.)

4. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

5. Remove the cinnamon sticks. Use a food ricer or immersion blender to puree the applesauce to a smooth texture, or leave chunky.