So here’s a question for you. Are you a store bought applesauce person or a homemade applesauce person? Or do you not care? I heard there are people out there who actually don’t care about food. GASP! Can you believe it?!?!
I’m a homemade applesauce person – all the way. Just the thought of eating store bought applesauce makes me cringe. It doesn’t even taste like apples! What the???
Last year I didn’t want to bother making applesauce because Gravensteins (the BEST apples to make applesauce) always come in season right when I’m going back to work. It’s tough to think about work, school and making applesauce. But then around October I about knocked myself loopy for not making any. So we suffered all year with store bought (which I refused to eat.)
Once again it’s applesauce time and I jumped on it this year. 20 pounds of Gravensteins please =o)
I don’t really have a recipe for making applesauce. It’s all taste (which also means no two batches are exactly the same.
Oh yeah, and my kids and I HATE, let me say that again, HATE chunks in our applesauce. So I use a food mill to squish it all up. This is perfect for two reasons. 1) no chunks (yeah) and B) I don’t have to peel the apples first which saves a ton of time.
So I cook up the apples in a large pot. I core them as much as I can because I don’t want crushed up stems or seeds in there. A girl has to have some standards, right?
Then squish them in your food mill.
Put the applesauce back into a large pan over medium heat and add sugar to taste. I add anywhere from 1-2 cups depending on how full the pan is. I also add a teaspoon or 3 =o) or cinnamon.
Heat until it’s boiling and then add to your sterilized jars.
Depending how how the applesauce is you may or may not have to put them in a hot water bath to seal them. 9 times out of 10 they seal perfectly. If they don’t after they cool, put them in a hot water bath for 10 minutes and they will.
Voila! Amazing homemade applesauce!
Enjoy!
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I haven’t done any canning but I would love to try.
I hate store bought applesauce but I love the homemade stuff. So yum!
We have done a lot of apple sauce this year. There are trees in our neighbourhood that were not being gleaned so we helped ourselves and now we have apple sauce. (And pie!)
I do love homemade applesauce. One year I was bottling applesauce for the 8 of us–no small task. I had 1/2 bushel of ripe pears so I just threw them in with the apples probably 60% apples 40% pears. It was the best stuff ever. The pears added an amazing sweetness and the apples gave it great texture. What ever the combo, it was out of this world. I still think about that wonderful batch.
Hubby and i eat very little applesauce but I do ‘hanging head in shame’ occasionally buy it for the grandkids. I really should make at least one batch. Thanks for the pep talk.
Yum! This looks wonderful!
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I made a couple of batches of applesauce over the last few years. Aside from all the peeling and coring, I love it, because it makes the house smell so good. I usually just cook mine in the crockpot though. And I don’t can properly like you have here, just put it into leftover tupperware or containers and freeze it. I love cooking with it, as a substitute for oil in baking recipes. We have apples from an apple festival we went to so I might make some this year, I’m not sure yet.
TOTALLY home made. I won’t eat the store bought stuff at all, only get it for use in recipes. But homemade is divine-no comparison! So with those you can without a water bath, are those OK at room temperature just like the ones boiled in water? I do it your way, letting the heat from whatever I put in there seal it and it always works, but I keep them in the fridge b/c I’m scared I’ve created poison since everyone else boils theirs. Let me know your thoughts!
I learned to make my own because we can’t buy it here. lol 🙂