Making and canning apple butter

Apple Butter

Learn how to make apple butter and fill your house with the aroma of cooking apples, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Our apple butter recipe is great on toast or spooned into oatmeal!

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

It’s hard to find any apple butter, let alone good apple butter in the grocery store these days. Making apple butter is a great way to preserve the fruits of an apple harvest.

What is Apple Butter?

Apple butter is made by slowly cooking pureed apples for over an hour. The sugars in the apples caramelize as the puree cooks, giving the apple butter its rich, sweet flavor and dark color.

In contrast to what the name implies, there is no «butter» in apple butter. The name comes from its smooth and buttery texture. Apple butter is delicious on buttered toast.

Don’t Throw Away Your Apple Cores!

Although apple butter takes time to make, the upfront part is easy. You do not have to peel or core the apples.

The pectin for firming up the resulting apple butter resides mostly in the cores and there is a lot of flavor in the apple peels. After the first cooking, these parts get discarded as the pulp is run through a food mill.

This recipe produces a traditional apple butter, which is both sweet and sour, the addition of cider vinegar just intensifying the flavor and giving it its tangy edge. It’s seasoned with cinnamon, cloves, allspice and lemon.

For more information on apple varieties, check out our Guide to Apples.

The Difference Between Applesauce and Apple Butter

Apple butter is a smoother, more concentrated form of applesauce. The methods for making the two both start out similarly, by slow-cooking apples until they’re soft and mushy. Applesauce will be ready at this saucy stage, sometimes with the addition of sugar and/or spices to flavor it. But to make apple butter, you puree the stewed apples and cook them down further so more liquid evaporates and the apples caramelize.

Alternatives to Stovetop Cooking

Don’t love standing at the stove stirring for ages? These two methods are way more hands-off.

• Microwave: Instead of cooking the seasoned puree on the stovetop in Step 5, cook it uncovered in a microwave, on medium heat setting to simmer, for around 30 minutes. If you do this, monitor the cooking every 5 or 10 minutes. Microwaves vary in their power.
• Slow cooker: In Step 5, transfer the seasoned puree to a slow cooker. Cook on low with the lid ajar (lay spoons across the cooker and set the lid on top) so steam can escape. Stir once every hour or so. Depending on your cooker, it could take up to 5 hours for the apple butter to cook down.

The Best Apples for Apple Butter

Look to softer apples, like Gravenstein, to make apple butter, as they will cook down faster. We also like the tart flavor of Granny Smith apples. Combine different apples to match your taste preferences. We recommend the following varieties:

• Braeburn
• Cortland
• Fuji
• McIntosh
• Golden Delicious
• Jonagold

Learn which apples are best to use in cooking and baking in our guide to apples.

Swaps and Suggestions for Homemade Apple Butter

• Switch up the spices. This recipe calls for cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and some lemon to bring out the flavor, but feel free to play around with others spices such as ginger and nutmeg if you wish.
• Switch up the sweetener. We recommend sticking with white sugar for a straightforward apple flavor. But readers have shared some of the swaps they’ve made in the comments. Check them out!

To Can or Not to Can?

Want to make larger batches of apple butter so you can have jars on hand for later and not worry about refrigerating them? Planning to give jars as gifts? If so, sterilize glass jars for canning. We offer detailed directions for water bath canning in the recipe below.

If you want to eat your apple butter up quickly, skip the canning. It keeps in the fridge for weeks as long as you’re not dipping dirty spoon into it. Or freeze it for later.

NOTE: For this recipe to be safe for canning, the sugar levels should not be reduced lower than to 1/3 cup sugar per 1 cup apple pulp.

Storing and Freezing Apple Butter

• Fresh apple butter will keep in the fridge for at least couple of weeks, if not longer.
• Sealed, canned jars of apple butter will keep for years in the pantry (they’re best used within a year, though). Once opened, they’ll also keep for weeks in the refrigerator.
• Frozen apple butter will keep up to a year.

Ways to Use Your Apple Butter

Whether you spread it on toast, swirl it into oatmeal, or serve it on a cheese plate, you’ll find a plethora of delicious ways to incorporate apple butter.

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Apple Butter

Give it to your loved ones during the holiday season! It has a fresh apple flavor, with deep spicy undertones, and an ultra silky texture.

Apple butter is one of the most fabulous edible gifts to make during the holiday season. It has a fresh apple flavor, with deep spicy undertones, and an ultra silky texture. It tastes delicious spread over biscuits, toast, or on a peanut butter sandwich.

From Sommer Collier of A Spicy Perspective.

Granny Smith apples

apple cider vinegar

packed light brown sugar

apple pie spice (or pumpkin pie spice)

1. Core the apples. Cut into wedges and place the pieces in a medium saucepot. (No need to peel the apples.) Add apple cider vinegar, salt, and water.
2. Set the pot over medium heat. Cover, leaving a little space open for the pot to vent, and simmer for 20–30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off heat when apples are extremely tender and most of the liquid has evaporated.
3. Place apple mash and liquid in a food mill set over a large bowl. Grind the apples into a fine sauce. Discard the peels. (Don’t have a food mill? Peel the apples before cooking, and then puree the apple mash in the blender!)
4. Place apple sauce back into the original pot. Set back over medium heat and add sugar, spices, and vanilla. Simmer, stirring every couple minutes, until sauce thickens and turns dark brown, about 15 minutes.
5. Cool, then store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks, or can for long-term storage.
6. Makes 4 to 5 cups, depending on how much you cook it down.

You can make small batches of apple butter for personal enjoyment, or multiply your recipe for plenty of gifts to go around. Best of all, it’s a gift that can be canned for long-term storage, so the recipients don’t have to eat it right away!

Homemade apple butter requires a two-step cooking process. Don’t let that deter you from giving it a try. It’s extremely easy to make!

It’s important to cook the apples twice for two reasons: One, if you add the sugar to the apples when they are simmering to soften, the sugar may burn before the apples are soft enough to mash. Two, the sugar and spices can’t fully infiltrate the apples until they are mashed or pureed.

So first, cook the apples with apple cider vinegar and water. This allows them to soften into mush and the vinegar gives the apple butter a fresh tangy quality.

Once the apples are soft, use a food mill to grind the apples into a fine sauce. A food mill produces the absolute best texture: smooth with tiny bits of apple speckled throughout. Using a food mill also means there’s no need to peel the apples before cooking. The food mill will separate them out.

If you don’t have a food mill, you can still make apple butter by pureeing the cooked apples in a blender. Just be sure to peel the apples before cooking.

The second cooking time is when you add in the sugar, spices, and a little vanilla.

Cook the apple butter just long enough to melt the sugar, intensify the spices, and thicken the apple butter to your desired consistency.

If you like a perky apple butter, just 5–10 minutes will do. If you like your apple butter to have a dark rich flavor, cook it for 15–20 minutes.

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How to Make Homemade Apple Butter Recipe for Canning

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Nothing tastes better on a cold, fall morning than homemade apple butter on a piece of warm toast with a glass of tea.

I’m serious guys! I might have a bit of nostalgia about a good apple butter recipe, which makes me love it even more than the average person.

You see, my aunt used to go to apple butter festivals all the time, and I grew up watching her make it at home. She used those HUGE apple butter kettles – made of copper – and according to my little eyes at the time, I swear she used boat oars to stir the pots.

The apple butter cooked for days outside, caramelizing and turning into this warm, cinnamon-y, delicious goodness that won her hundreds of prizes throughout her lifetime.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to her large apple butter kettles, but I do remember how it was made. It’s been a staple for my family for years; I have to make apple butter in a crockpot. Here’s how I do it!

The Best Apples for Homemade Apple Butter

Not all apples are the same. If you’ve tried a few varieties, you know they all still taste like an apple, but they have different levels of tartness or sweetness as well as softness vs. firmness.

When you’re making a canned apple butter recipe, you want soft apples because they will cook down faster. You don’t need to use all of the same apples; feel free to mix varieties. Sometimes, that can help to create a better flavor with more depth.

Some of the best apples for making an apple butter recipe include:

Even though I think Granny Smith and Honeycrisp are two of the very BEST types of apples, they truly don’t work the best for apple butter. I used Jonathan, and while they taste great, the tartness meant I spent more time developing the flavor to cancel out the tart flavor.

Gathering Your Apple Butter Ingredients

The great thing about making apple butter is that the ingredients are commonly found in most pantries. Everyone has their own recipe and twists, but the general ingredients I follow include:

• Apples – DUH!
• Sugar or brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Cloves

Everyone has their own special kick or twist. My aunt used to add Red Hot Candies to her recipe sometimes, and it’s really delicious that way. I’ve tried dashes of vanilla as well.

Don’t be scared to try something new or add a new flavor profile. With apple butter making, a lot of time is spent taste testing and seasoning until it’s the perfect taste for what you want.

Out of time? Let me tell you a secret – you can use pre-made applesauce from the store to create apple butter. SERIOUSLY! I’ve used the brand Musselman to create apple butter before when I ran out of time. Life happens guys!

Get Started Making This Apple Butter Recipe

I want to warn you – making a good apple butter recipe is going to take HOURS, and I’m not kidding you. I highly suggest that you start the recipe at night in a crockpot to reduce how much time is spent the next day cooking it down.

We cannot fully replicate apple butter recipes that were made outside in large kettles for 36-48 hours inside. As much as I wish we could, it’s just not possible.

Here’s how I make mine at home; I think the results are delicious!

First things first, you need to wash your apples; I typically use a water and vinegar soak to clean them up. Then, it’s time to peel, core, and slice them.

Listen, you could do this with a manual hand apple, but I highly suggest you buy a combo peeler, corer, and slicer. They’re so easy to use; my kids can do it with me, but it reduces the time by half – at minimum. You can move so much faster.

By the way, keep those apple peels and cores. You can use them to make apple scrap jelly. They also can be added to your compost OR fed to your chickens!

Anyway, toss everything into your Crockpot. I needed to use two different slow cookers to hold all of the apples I used, but you might not need two.

Now, add 1/2 cup of water, turn it on low, and let them cook for hours. You’ll need to stir frequently, typically once an hour or so, to get the heat to move through everything evenly.

After it’s cooked down, it’s time to start seasoning. Toss in the sugar and the spices. This is where it comes down to two things – your preferences and the types of apples you use.

While there are some apples that work better for most apple butter recipes, you might not have that type growing at home or available locally. You can use any type of apples, but if you pick a variety that is more tart (like I did), you’ll find that you need to add more sugar and spices to help balance the flavor.

That’s okay! Add small amounts at a time, so you don’t accidentally overseason. Stir well, let it cook, then taste it again.

Apple butter really is a product of time and love!

Once you have it seasoned to your preference, it’s time to blend it up. I use a regular blender, spooning it out the slow cookers and then pouring into a pot on the stove once it’s pureed. You could use an immersion blender instead.

Now, your apple butter is done. At this point, I let it stay warm on the stove as I prepare the jars for canning.

Canning Apple Butter

I prefer to can my apple butter in half-pints (or jelly jar), but you’re free to use pints instead. With my family, I know I can reduce waste by using half-pints.

Once your water bath canner is boiling and your apple butter is hot on the stove, make sure you also sterilize and clean your jars, lids, and rims in hot water. I let them soak in my sink until it’s time to fill them.

Now, it’s time to fill those jars! Apple butter needs a 1/4 headspace, so make sure you measure it out each time you fill a jar. Wipe down the edges of the jar with a wet washcloth and put on the lids and rims.

Apple butter needs to be processed for 15 minutes for half-pints and 25 minutes for pints in a rolling water bath. Take out the jars when the timer is done, and let the jars sit on your counter for 12-24 hours undisturbed.

Now you have lots of canned apple butter to use throughout the year and not just in the fall and winter. It’s a delicious treat all year-round.

Storing & Using Home Canned Apple Butter

While regular apple butter that is not canned lasts about 3 months in the refrigerator or up to a year in the freezer, what about canned apple butter?

Home canned apple butter has a shelf life of two years, but after a year, the flavor might start to degrade a bit. Chances are the jars won’t last that long anyway!

For optimal storage, keep your jars in a cool, dark place. The back of your cabinet works perfect or a cellar down in your basement.

So, how do we use apple butter? Let me tell you that there are tons of ways to use it! Here are a few of my favorites.

• Spread on toast, muffins, or graham crackers
• Cooked in muffins
• Spread over crepes or waffles
• Mix in smoothies
• Mixed in barbecue sauce
• Cook pork chops in apple butter – seriously yum!

Homemade Apple Butter for Canning

Homemade, easy to make apple butter made in a slow cooker with canning instructions.

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