Roasted apple butter
Roast
Roasting
Apple butter is, essentially, a concentrated, spreadable version of applesauce. There are a variety of ways to go from whole fruit to butter (i.e., stovetop, crockpot, etc.), and I think many people have an opinion on which way is best. My method is a bit unconventional in that it yields a batch of apple butter in a matter of hours, rather than taking all day to create. The secret: roasting. And uncored apples. The cores (as well as the peels) contain a good deal of pectin, which helps firm up the sauce and give it a more butter-like consistency. And roasting allows for complex caramelized flavors to develop, and also removes a bit more water. Once the cooked fruit has been run through a food mill, I often find it requires very little (and sometimes no) stovetop time to be cooked down into butter. (If you don’t have a food mill, you can run the mixture through a sieve, but it will be a tedious process due to the thickness of the mixture. To make this easier, I would suggest coring the apples before you roast them, and perhaps covering the pan while it's in the oven to retain some of the moisture. You should wind up with something that has a more sauce-like consistency, and will therefore run through the sieve with less difficulty.) <br /> <br />When deciding on apples, many people prefer a mix of sweet (Fuji, McIntosh, Jonagold) and tart (Braeburn, Granny Smith, Liberty). I love tart apples, so I usually wind up using mostly tart with maybe one or two sweet ones thrown in, and then using cider in place of water to up the sweetness. If you use a mix of sweet and tart, swap out some of the cider for water. Overall, the sugar and spices in the recipe should be treated as guidelines rather than gospel. Feel free to add more or less to suit your own tastes.
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