Southern Crock Pot Apple Butter

My father in law gave me this recipe before he passed away & he added a handful of red hot candy during the second cooking. Really yummy. Getting ready to make a batch now. Best apple butter I've ever eaten.

I picked this recipe for crock pot apple butter since it used the least sugar (I also liked cider instead of water), and I attempted to follow it exactly as written. I was excited NOT to have to peel all those apples! The first half went well, cooking on low overnight and then using my food processor to purée. The second half didn't work for me. After an hour on low for no change, I ended up going for 10 hours on high without the lid, with frequent stirring and scraping down the sides. After that, the apple butter was as thick as I expected. However, this also meant the sugar was highly concentrated too, and in fact far too sweet for me. I thought I had followed the recipe, but I had actually grabbed by 3/4 cup measure, not my 1 cup measure, so I only put in 1.5 cups sugar total. If I make this again, 3/4 cup sugar is the upper limit! I used mostly Stayman-Winesap apples and they are fairly sweet, so that might be down to 1/4 cup sugar if any.<br/><br/>This recipe is a GREAT guideline, the result tastes good, but it should have much less sugar, and much more cooking for thickening (cook off the liquid!) after the purée step.<br/><br/>PS: 16 cups is 4 quarts, so I chopped apples until I filled my 4-quart crock pot.

This apple butter is super easy to make and delicious, but it never really got thick for me. I called a friend who makes apple butter all the time and she said it's suppose to be thick. I think I cooked it way too long in the crock pot maybe. This apple butter tastes great though, just wish it was thicker. Since I made this recipe, I posted my own version and added dry pectin and cooked it over the stove for 1 hour instead of in a crock pot for over ten hours. Turned out great and thick. If I make this recipe again, I won't cook it that long and add dry pectin.

Very easy and very tasty too!

This was absolutely excellent! Our family usually buys apples a case at a time and we always wonder what to do with the last flat or so. I ended up grating some fresh nutmeg into the mix as well and was very happy with the results. Next time I may put a stick or two of cinnamon in with the apples to start with and see how that goes. Thanks for the great recipe!