I like making apple butter about once a year, so I decided to try the recipe for Overnight Apple Butter. It was a Cooking Light recipe, but I had some qualms about the quantity of sugar and honey that went into it. I generally like no-sugar-added apple butter, but this definitely wasn't going to be that.
This recipe cooked in a slow cooker for 10 hours, and then cooked another 1 ½ hours. I knew I wouldn't have time to take care of the recipe in morning during that break, or even get the ingredients ready in morning. I prepped all the ingredients, put them in the slow cooker crock, and kept it in the fridge overnight until I could let it cook all day long.
After it cooked for 10 hours, I was supposed to put the mixture through a sieve. This was a messy process that took a lot longer than I thought it should have. I put it through a mesh basket, and this ended up taking 15 minutes. Part of this may have been because I'd left the skins on the apples, but I'm not entirely sure it would have been faster if I'd peeled them.
After I'd strained the mixture, I poured it all back into the crock pot and cooked it for another hour and a half. I didn't stir it at all in the meantime, even though the recipe says to. I let it cool for a little while and then spooned it into jars.
This was pretty good, but much sweeter than I'm used to. I expected it to be sweet from all the honey and brown sugar the recipe called for, but I usually buy no-sugar-added apple butter. The flavor was definitely very rich, and the apple butter was very thick. I liked the amount of spice in the recipe.
I liked this, but I think this recipe could use some changes. When I try this again, I will start by cutting the amount of sugar and honey by at least half, because I really did find it too sweet. I may peel the apples, but only so that I don't have to worry about pieces of apple peel when I put the mixture into my blender or use my immersion blender (affiliate link) instead of straining the apple butter. By cutting back on the sugar, I'll make the recipe much, much healthier, and by blending the apple butter I'll make the recipe a lot easier.
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