I can’t believe we’ve never made slow cooker apple butter before – or, really, any apple butter! This slow cooker apple butter with molasses is a new family favorite. And, with this rainy winter that just doesn’t want to end … I feel like I will be making apple butter for a little while longer.
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My friend makes THE BEST apple butter and I have always wanted to give it a try … all I knew about it was that it takes a long time, but it’s worth the wait.
Bruised Apples Are Perfect!
For this apple butter, I had plans to use an assortment of bruised and battered apples, honey, and brown sugar, but we were out of honey, so I substituted local molasses and it was incredibly delicious.
Apple butter might be even easier than apple sauce because you don’t have to peel the apples. Put everything in. Some people keep the cores in, but I wasn’t keen on finding any apple seeds in my apple butter later on, so I kept the cores out. I can usually find reliable recipes when I check the New York Time cooking section, and I found this recipe that uses unpeeled and uncored apples. This recipe also calls for a food mill and I was trying to avoid the messiness of that, so I left the cores out.
The Key Is Slow Cooking
Slow cooking is usually very, very forgiving. It’s hard to mess up anything that is simmering away in a slow cooker for hour upon hour. And, when you are cooking apples, the bonus is that your house is going to smell amazing!
I have to confess that I was initially skeptical when I heard the term, apple butter. What does that even mean? What does it even look like? When my friend dropped off her famous apple butter and told me that her boys eat it right out of the jar, I was intrigued. When I tried her apple butter, I knew I had to figure out how to make my own. She wasn’t lying when she said you could eat it right out of the jar.
However, in spite of the fact that you CAN eat this slow cooker apple butter right out of the jar, that doesn’t mean you should. Or at least not all the time. I highly recommend baking or buying a loaf of gorgeous fresh bread and slather your thick, sweet apple butter all over it. My kids were in heaven after school when they came home to a house that smelled not only like this amazing slow cooker apple butter but also fresh bread. Lucky ducks.
Got apples?? You need to make this! With local apples and local molasses, this treat really is a treat.
Other Favorite Apple Recipes:
Slow Cooker Apple Butter With Molasses
Slow Cooker Apple Butter
Not only will your house smell amazing, but your family will DEVOUR this slow cooker apple butter!
Ingredients
- 12 apples cores are optional
- 1/3 c brown sugar
- 1/3 c molasses
- 3 T apple cider vinegar
- 1 T ground cinnamon
Instructions
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Combine all the ingredients in your slow cooker and turn it to LOW and let it cook for about 24 hours.
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Yep. 24 hours. After about 12 hours, I took an immersion blender to blend the skins - they literally disintegrated into the sauce.
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After about 23 hours, I let the slow cooker cook with the cover off for about an hour to let it thicken just a little bit more. That's it. DELICIOUS!
I believe there were studies that showed apple seeds are poisonous so I cored apples before use
Definitely too many seeds can be toxic! Coring works, too.
I put to much molasses in what can I do now
Oh, no! I feel like there is no such thing as too much molasses!