Apple Butter Recipe for Canning
Have you ever tried making apple butter? Apple butter is a delicious spreadable apple puree that is cooked down until thick. This apple butter recipe is amazing amazing on waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, scones or even toast. Gather some apples or crab apples from your yard, the farmers market, or I bet a neighbour will gladly share some with you to preserve.
Home apple butter is the other Fall flavour, apples, cooked with cinnamon, and sugar and thick smooth texture. Hubs is famous for his apple butter, he receives calls every year asking if its ready yet. It makes a great gift as is, or pair it with a great loaf of bread, or premade waffles and this recipe.
What Kind of Apples Should I use for Apple Butter?
Hubs has made this recipe with many types of apples, his favorite are crab apples, or gala apples, any type of juicy apple you find works.
Sterilizing Jars for Canning Apple Butter
This apple butter recipe for canning is cooked on the stovetop, and you make it without a canner. Its a classic hot pack canning recipe. When canning any kind of fruit butter, jam or jelly you need to start by sterilizing the jars, lids and rings. We sterilized ours in a pot of boiling water, but you can sterilize them by putting them through the dishwasher, or use the oven.
To sterilize jars in boiling water. Place the clean jars, lids, and ring in a very large pot. Cover with water making sure everything is submerged. Bring the water to boil and boil for at least ten minutes. Its very important to sterilize your jars when you hot pack a recipe. Keep hot until the apple butter is ready.
Apple Butter Recipe for Canning
Apple Butter Ingredients
5 lbs apples (crab apples or small apples work well)
2 cups sugar (this depends on the sweetness in the apples and preference use more or less as you want. If using crab apples add an extra 1/2 cup of sugar.
Optional – 2 teaspoon cinnamons, 1/2 teaspoon cloves, 1/2 teaspon allspice
Apple Butter Instructions
Preparing the Apples for Apple Butter
Begin by washing the apples, really well and removing any stems. If the apples are small you can cook them whole. If your canning larger apples cut them in quarters first. You don’t need to core or peel the apples, the pectin in the peels help thicken the apple butter.
Place the clean apples into a large pot and barely cover with water. Simmer on medium low heat stirring often so they don’t stick. Cook until apples are soft and mushy about half an hour.
Screening the Apples for Apple Butter
Line a large colander with cheesecloth and place over a very large bowl.
Carefully transfer the hot apples to the large colander, squeeze the pulp and juice out through the cheesecloth. This screens out the apple skins, cores and seeds from the apple pulp. Once screened gather up the cheesecloth toss out the skins.
Cooking the Apple Butter
Place the screened apple pulp back into the large saucepan. Add the sugar, and stir until dissolved. Add the spices.
Cook over medium low heat until thick, stirring often to prevent sticking. Takes approximately an hour.
Stir the apple butter regularly to help dissolve the sugar. Cook the apples until thick and caramalized about an hour.
When still hot, spoon the hot apple butter into the sterilized jars leaving a half inch gap from the top. Make sure the top of the jar is clean. Using a wet clean cloth wipe the rim of the jars to make sure its free from any of the apple butter. Once clean immediately place your sterile metal lid on top.
Holding the jar in a towel to protect your hands from the heat, screw the ring onto the jar. Hand tighten the ring and then wipe the jar clean. Set aside leaving to cool undisturbed.
The jars will pop as the apple butter cools sealing the jars. If a jar fails to seal, place them in the fridge and use within a month.
Canned apple butter will store very well in a cool space for up to a year.
Apple butter is thicker than apple sauce. You can use it as a jam on toast, but its equally delicious on scones, pancakes, or waffles.
Apple is such a popular flavour, did you ever meet anyone who disliked apple pie? I certainly haven’t. Here are two other apple recipes you may enjoy.
These apple shortbread bread squares have a light buttery shortbread base with a caramel apple topping.
Apple Butter Recipe for Canning
Ingredients
- 5 lbs crab apples or small apples
- 2 cups white sugar adjust to taste
- 2 tsp cinnamon optional
- ½ tsp cloves optional
- ½ tsp allspice optional
Instructions
Sterilizing Jars
- To sterilize jars in boiling water. Place the clean jars, lids, and ring in a very large pot. Cover with water making sure everything is submerged. Bring the water to boil and boil for at least ten minutes. Its very important to sterilize your jars when you hot pack a recipe. Keep hot until the apple butter is ready.
Apple Butter Instructions
- Begin by washing the apples, really well and removing any stems. If the apples are small you can cook them whole. If your canning larger apples cut them in quarters first. You don't need to core or peel the apples, the pectin in the peels helps thicken the apple butter.
- Place the clean apples into a large pot and barely cover with water. Simmer on medium low heat stirring often so they don't stick. Cook until apples are soft and mushy about half an hour.
- Line a large colander with cheesecloth and place over a very large bowl.
- Carefully transfer the hot apples to the large colander, squeeze the pulp and juice out through the cheesecloth. This screens out the apple skins, cores and seeds from the apple pulp. Once screened gather up the cheesecloth toss out the skins.
- Place the screened apple pulp back into the large saucepan. Add sugar, and stir until dissolved. Add the spices.
- Stir the apple butter to dissolve the sugar.
- Cook over medium low heat until thick, stirring often to prevent sticking. Takes approximately an hour.
- When still hot, spoon the hot apple butter into the sterilized jar until its about half inch from the top. Immediately place your sterile metal lid on top.
- Holding the jar in a towel to protect your hands from the heat screw the ring onto the jar.
- The jars will pop as the apple butter cools sealing the jars. If they fail to seal, place them in the fridge and use within a week.
Other Canning Recipes to Try
Homemade Sweet Pickle Relish
A delicious canned sweet pickle relish recipe. This recipe has no food colouring, and gets its colour from partially peeled fresh cucumbers.
Its delicious and sweet, a fantastic way to preserve cucumbers. It not only tastes much better than boughten relish, you know it has fresh water and good quality ingredients.
Dilled Carrots and Bean Pickles Recipe
If you like dill pickles you should enjoy these dilled carrot and bean pickles. The flavour of the pickled beans and carrots go very well together, and as an extra bonus, they look really pretty in their jars.
I love making our own apple sauce, never made apple butter though. It sounds really delicious and I bet it tastes great in baked pastries too! I love making cinnamon buns with different fruit, like honey marmalade so this would go well with it!
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Oh my yumminess Leanna, your hubby’s apple butter sounds divine. I’ve always been a bit frightened of making anything that involves bottling/canning afterwards, just in case I mess the sterilizing up. Maybe I’ll give this one a go. I don’t thnk it will even last 1 week so I should be good 😉