What is apple butter like

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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What Is Apple Butter and How Do You Make It At Home?

Hint: There’s no butter involved.

There are few things cozier than toast or biscuits with apple butter on a chilly fall day. Nicole McLaughlin shows you what you need to know about everybody’s favorite autumnal fruit spread, including how to make it at home:

What Is Apple Butter?

Contrary to its name, there is no butter involved in the making of apple butter. The fruity spread, which is essentially highly concentrated applesauce, is made by cooking apples with spices (like cinnamon and cloves) or ciders until the sugars are caramelized. This process leaves you with a thick, brown, rich, and powerfully apple-flavored spread.

Apple Butter vs. Applesauce

Since apple butter is cooked much longer than applesauce, it has a totally different consistency. The extra time over the heat makes apple butter thicker and glossier than applesauce. While applesauce is soft and mushy, apple butter has a rich, spreadable texture that’s somewhere between jam and peanut butter.

Also, the sugars in apple butter are more concentrated than applesauce. This gives the spread a longer shelf life than the sauce.

Apple Butter Uses

Use apple butter the way you’d use any fruit spread: Spread it on toast or biscuits, dollop it onto pancakes or waffles, stir it into your oatmeal, or use it to give your baked goods a burst of fruitiness. You can even use apple butter in savory recipes — brush it onto meats (such as pork, chicken, or turkey) before cooking to add delicious fall flavor.

How to Make Apple Butter

If you’ve ever made applesauce, congratulations! You know exactly how to make apple butter: Just cook cored apples with sugar and warm spices like cinnamon and allspice. The only difference? Apple butter cooks longer to achieve its brown color, rich texture, and deep flavor.

It’s traditionally cooked on the stove, but you can also make apple butter with your slow cooker or Instant Pot. «I love Chef John’s recipe,» shares Nicole. «It’s super smooth and spreadable.»

Get Chef John’s Apple Butter Recipe here

For step-by-step instructions, learn How to Make Apple Butter 4 Easy Ways. Plus, check our Beginner’s Guide to Canning and Preserving for expert canning, food safety, and storage tips.

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What Does Apple Butter Taste Like?

What’s the difference between apple butter and apple jelly? We’re answering your biggest questions about apple butter and going into detail about the taste and texture. Then we’ll give you some tips on how to serve it.

Let’s get started.

What Does Apple Butter Taste Like?

If you’ve tasted McIntosh, Gala and Granny Smith apples, you know the range of appley flavors from tart to sweet. This same range is found in apple butters since they can be made with any type of apple.

Take crab apple butter, for instance. The crab apple is intensely sour, and so even with added sugar, crab apple butter will be tart and moderately sweet. Apple butters made with milder apples are a lot sweeter.

Spices like cinnamon and nutmeg are also typical ingredients in apple butter. This can often make it taste similar to a spiced apple pie.

Apple Butter Texture

Whereas applesauce is generally wet and medium-thick, apple butter is creamy and dense like whipped butter. Also like butter, it’ll spread on a slice of bread.

Some apple butters are chunky while others are completely smooth. Even the chunky style of apple butter is creamy as the hunks of fruit are cooked to a melt-in-your-mouth point.

Is Apple Butter like Jelly?

There are similarities between apple butter and jelly in the same way jams are similar to jellies. Both are thick spreads made from sweetened and condensed fruits.

But apple butter shares more in common jam and chutney since it’s much closer to mashed fruit than to a gelatinous juice type of product.

What Do You Eat with Apple Butter?

The most obvious choice might be toast, but there are plenty of other things you can slather apple butter on. Think crackers with vegan cashew cheese, veggie burgers and pancakes.

Stir it into oatmeal, bake it into energy bars or drizzle it on top of a bowl of vegan ice cream. You could even use apple butter for the base of an autumn spiced vegan gravy. Now, you may be wondering what you can’t do with apple butter.

What’s a Good Substitute for Apple Butter?

There’s no reason you can’t use applesauce instead of apple butter, but it will be quite different in consistency and richness. Depending on what you’re using it for, even vegan butter with spices you’d use in apple pie could work.

A sweet chutney with a similar flavor to apple butter may also do well. It really depends on whether you’re looking to approximate flavor or texture.

Apple Butter Recipe Tips

Let’s see how easy it is to make apple butter. These recipes work for any type of apple, but remember that tart apples may require added sugar.

Here’s a super simple recipe for apple butter that only requires two ingredients: apples and cinnamon. If you use sweet apples, there’s no need for added sugar. If you like, you can add other spices like allspice, cardamom and even ginger.

The great thing about apple butter is that it’s a clever way to use up apples that are on their way out. Try an apple and pear butter the next time you have some pears that need to be used up, too. For this recipe, you’ll need the fruit, brown sugar and a cinnamon stick.

Wrap Up

Apple butter is sort of but not quite like applesauce and apple jelly. It’s rich, creamy and buttery in texture with apple pie flavor. Eat it on toast, top your vegan pancakes with it or add it to your fruit-based dessert recipes, but don’t forget that you can easily sprinkle in some herbs like rosemary and thyme and pair it with savory meals.

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What Is Apple Butter and How Do I Use It?

If you’e not cooking with this fall inspired condiment, you should be.

I recently found myself purchasing a jar of apple butter because I was inspired by a chicken recipe that called for it. I was pretty unfamiliar with this condiment, and it led me to ask myself, how is this any different from applesauce? Is there butter in it? What else can I use this for now that I have a huge jar of it? SO. MANY. APPLE. BUTTER. QUESTIONS. Don’t worry, this story has a great ending, because I now have answers to all of these questions, and so much more.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way here. Just because it has the word “butter” in its name does not mean that there is actual butter in this product (in the same way that there’s no butter in peanut butter, you feel me?). What this product basically boils down to (pun extremely intended) is a more concentrated version of applesauce. The latter consists of apples that are cooked—typically with cider, sugar, and warming spices—and then pureed or milled. The flavors of applesauce and apple butter are quite similar, the only difference is that it’s much more concentrated in apple butter.

What distinguishes apple butter is that the apple mixture is cooked much longer than apple sauce, which helps to cook off some extra moisture and create caramelization throughout. Caramelization means it will take on a much darker color and possess a rich, almost nutty flavor. Usually, the apples are cooked in cider, sugar, and spices (just like applesauce), then puréed, then put back over heat for an extended amount of time to cook out all of the water. The texture of apple butter is much firmer and more spreadable than the more watery, (loose) pudding-like consistency of applesauce.

Charles Walton; Styling: Mary Lyn Hill

So when can you use it? Well, it’s a fall flavor bomb. So any time you’re looking to impart a strong, fruity, fall flavor into a dish, apple butter is a great condiment to grab. Plus, it’s delicious in both sweet and savory applications. Add a layer to your next apple pie or apple crumble bars and it’s potent, apple-forward flavor will not disappoint. Incorporate it in all of your fall baking—muffins, scones, cookies, breads, cinnamon rolls, you name it! Apple butter is a worthy addition. Smear it on a piece of buttered toast or add a spoonful to a bowl of yogurt or oatmeal. Since it’s quite similar to a jam or preserves, it’d be a lovely addition to your next autumn charcuterie board.

If you’re going the savory route, layer it into marinades, braises, reductions, and soups for a contrasting sweet note with a heavy hand of warm, cozy spices. Apples pair nicely with chicken and pork (throw in some fresh sage and thyme for the ultimate fall palate), so spoon a few dollops into your next braise. Since you’re probably dying to know what I did with my apple butter, I layered it into some prosciutto-wrapped, blue cheese-stuffed chicken breasts. Yeah. If that doesn’t make you want to throw on your favorite cable knit sweater and knee-high boots while sipping a pumpkin spice latte, I don’t know what will.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you can always make your own apple butter at home rather than opting for store-bought. Plan accordingly—the apples need to cook for a long time in order for them to expel all that liquid. Every apple butter recipe is a little different and the cook time will depend on if you cook it on the stove in a Dutch oven or in a slow cooker. This could be anywhere from 1 hour to 10. (Worry not, this would be a great time to binge the entire Halloweentown franchise.) Trust me, the extra effort is worth it. This stuff is in another league from applesauce. Any more questions? I don’t think so. The only thing left to do here is to grab a jar and get cooking.

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