Canning Applesauce

Canning Apple Sauce

I find few things more annoying than having to scroll through a looooong story about someone's day & everything they hold dear in order to get to the recipe I want to check out, so I will share my recipe FIRST.  If you want the story & pictures, continue to scroll.

The Recipe

10lb Apple 

2 c No Sugar Added Apple Juice 

2/3 cups Brown Sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

!/4 tsp nutmeg

8 pint mason jars, lids and rings

The Steps

Wash & sterilize mason jars.  I always hold them hot in the rack of my cannier waiting to be filled.  

Peel, core, & slice apple.  I used a peeler, corer, slicer to make my life easier.  

Combine apples, apple juice and spices in a pot larger enough to hold all of your apples.  (The pot I was using was FULL before I could add the last 5 or six apples, so I put it on the stove so the apples would break down while I prepared the last few apples.)

Cook apples on medium to medium-high until they are soft enough to mash.

Use an immersion blender to mash the sauce into the consistency you like best!  

Ladle your applesauce into prepared pint mason jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Wipe jar rims and adjust lids to finger tight.

Process filled jars in a boiling-water canner for 15 minutes. Remove jars from canner; cool overnight.

Remove rings for storing.

The Story

  Apples!  I LOVE apples!!!  Well, I love good apples, but I live in Florida, and we aren’t particularly KNOWN for our apples!  When you think Florida you think oranges.  For some, strawberries might come to mind.  We have a FANTASTIC strawberry harvest in the winter months! In recent years our produce industry has recently expanded to include countless blueberry farms and many blackberry patches.  Some growers are even producing a peach that grows well in Florida.  (I’m not personally a fan of the Florida peach because I find them hard to work with for jam making.)  Decent apples, however, are difficult to procure here!  The REALLY good ones come from so far north that they have no taste or are “mushy” by the time they arrive on our store shelves.  

  Recently, I spent some time in Virginia, and found myself at a lovely Mennonite produce stand with APPLES.  We had driven from Florida to Virginia, so I was able to buy 1/2 a bushel to bring home!  YAY!  It’s rare that I can fill my stock pile with yummy apple goodness!   With visions of apple pie filling, apple sauce, and apple jelly in my mind, I happily paid $15 for my BOX of apples!!! 

  When I got home (okay, maybe one the 13hour drive home too!) started scouring the internet for recipes.  I knew I wanted to make and preserve apple pie filling and apple sauce.  The apple pie filling recipe recipe was pretty easy to find.  I had a little more trouble finding one I really liked for apple sauce.  Every recipe I found was for pretty small batches.  I wanted to make more jars than I could eat in a week AND I wanted to preserve it for later use.  SO, I combined a couple of recipes that I liked,  and processed the jars for the amount of time that seemed standard for the couple of large batch recipes that I found.

My PRETTY apples!

I used this nifty gadget to peel, core, and slice my apple in one step! 

Apples prepared. Add apple juice, brown sugar, and spices then simmer until the apples are soft
enough to mash.

All of the recipes I found suggested using a food processor of a  regular blender to mash the apples.
I chose to use my emersion blender!  It seemed much easier than transferring the apple sauce between things a couple of times!  I've also had BAD experiences with HOT foods in a blender!

I had to be carefully to not touch and scratch my cooking pot!

Close to ready (for me).

This is the consistency I decided I wanted.  Next I ladled it into 8  pint size jars, and processed it in my water bath canner for 15 minutes.  

Finished!
  I really like the way this batch looks!  When I had friends bring me apples 2 years ago, the apple sauce I made with them had WAY TOOOO much cinnamon, and it looked too brown for my liking.  Amount of cinnamon was something I paid attention to when I was looking up recipes this time around!

I was SO excited to get these apple!  I'm EVEN more excited that I'll probably be back in Virginia around the same time next year which means that I'll be able to keep my stockpile sufficiently supplied with apple goodness for at least the next couple of years!!!