This is the recipe to use when you over-bought on apples last weekend and just can't eat another caramel-dipped slice. It's mostly hands-off once you get the apples peeled and cored, but it does take all day to make - perfect for a Sunday full of chores or football. I like an apple butter that is fruity and spicy, better for serving with a pork roast than putting in a dessert. I've included traditional spices here but it would also be delicious with something creative like five-spice powder, rosemary, or ground ginger. The teeny tiny slow cooker called for below was a $15 impulse purchase, but a great one: I recommend picking one up for small-batch preserving, like here, or for making soup for two. An immersion blender is by far the easiest tool for taking the mixture from chunky to buttery in consistency, but I suppose a blender or food processor could be used as well. I use whatever kind of apple I have lying around but have found the results are much more flavorful with local apples from an orchard or farmers market as opposed to the standard supermarket Red Delicious; if you're using the latter, it's just that much more important to cook them down as much as possible to really concentrate the flavor.

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