Cranberry Apple Butter- with pics!

People look at me like I'm crazy when I say that canning apple butter is easy.

Seriously, it is.

The single hardest, most annoying part, is peeling the apples.

And ever since I got my handy-dandy apple peeler:

that's gone much faster.

I do rather miss peeling them by hand, though. There is an old superstition that if you peel an apple in a single long strip (hard,but do-able, trust me!) and throw it over your left shoulder, the peel will fall into the first initial of your true love's name.

I've never done it. Maybe you will.

Meanwhile:

1/2 peck peeled, chopped apples (the finer the better, and I used Honeycrisp in this batch)

1/2 cup brown sugar or honey (I prefer the flavor of darker sweeteners, but white sugar is fine)

1/2 can of cranberry sauce (I use whole cranberry sauce, but it's irrelevant)

1 tsp apple pie seasoning

Combine in a saucepan, set on simmer, and go about your business... trying desperately to resist the lure of the yummy smells coming from your stove.

The sugar will caramelize and turn brown- this is good and normal!

There's almost no maximum time to leave it- I've cooked my apples down anywhere from3 hours (on medium, stirring regularly) to in a crockpot for nearly 36 hours.

You'll probably want to run it through a food processor or blender to get out any remaining lumps and ensure a creamy texture.

Pre-processing, after about 20 hours in a crockpot:

Post-processing, shortly after:

Once the butter clings to the spoon rather than all running off, it's ready. be sure to taste it at regular intervals to, you know, ensure proper amounts of sugar, spices, etc.... I keep extra buttermilk biscuits handy for this purpose ;-)

I won't tell you how to can it- that's gone into in far more detail in many other blogs, and I don't want to steer you wrong.

But your finished product will likely look something like this:

Now give it away, and/or serve at home with pancakes, biscuits, or my favorite pumpkin spice scones :)