Apple Sauce
Apple sauce is a wonderful addition to pancakes or waffles, you can stir it into your morning yoghurt, make an autumnal apple tiramisu with it or just scoop it right from the jar.
Ingredients
- apples, at least one kilogram, the more the better
- sugar (optional), to taste
Instructions
- Prepare your jars by washing them and the lids in hot water or the dishwasher. Put the jar lids and rings or the rubber bands in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and let it all cook for five minutes. Remove the lids, rings and/or rubber bands from the boiling water and put them onto a clean dish towel on the kitchen counter. Let them dry.
- Rinse the apples in your sink to wash off any dirt. Also, remove any leaves, grass or other residues.
- Once washed, peel the apples, quarter them and cut out the cores. Cut off all rotten parts. If you want to make apple vinegar from the scraps, make sure that you only use unspoiled peels and cores.
- Once you've peeled and cut all the apples, wash the quarters again and put them into a large pot (or several if you have too many apples to fit into one, although you can also cook them in succession). Fill up water to about a quarter of the pot and put the apples to a boil.
- When the water's boiling, carefully stir the apples from the top under so that they cook as well. After 5 - 20 minutes - depending on the variety – the apples become soft. Now use a hand blender to mix them into a smooth, homogenous mass. If you want, you can now optionally add some sugar to the apple sauce, but it isn't necessary for preserving.
- When the sauce is blended stir it well until it’s boiling. Be very careful at this stage as the thick mass will easily bubble over and explosively release splashes of hot apple sauce that usually shoot at an unsuspecting arm or hand.
- Remove the pot from the stove and with the help of a funnel, ladle the apple sauce into the jars. Leave about one inch of headspace. Before closing the lids, make sure that the rim of the jar is clean. That's best ensured by dipping a clean cloth (for example a towel) into some vinegar and wiping the rims clean. Seal the jars with the lids.
- To can the jars, fill as much water into your water-bath canner as indicated in the manual and heat it. The water in the pot must have approximately the same temperature as the apple sauce in the jars. If we put the hot jars into cold to medium-warm water, they would break due to the huge temperature difference between the outside (water) and the inside (apple sauce). Make sure there is enough space between the jars and they don’t touch. Close the pot lid and bring the water to a boil. Once it boils, set the timer to 35 minutes and let the canner do its wonders.
- When time's up, carefully open the canner lid. Beware of the hot steam! Remove the jars with a glass lifter out of the canner and put them onto a towel on the counter to cool down.
- When they’ve cooled down completely, store the apple sauce in a cool and dark place. It’ll last up to two years.