Our apple trees did not produce much for us this season so I was pretty excited when I found thirty pounds of apples for $5 at our local IGA. I figured I should do something with them that day so it was time to make apple butter.

1. Core apples (I leave the peals on) and place in large pot, add two cups of water. Cover and cook on low heat until apples are soft.
2. Transfer apples to blender and blend until smooth and then pour into your slow cooker, leave a little space for your other ingredients. Make sure when you are blending that you do not fill it up too much or you will burn your hand like I did. I filled the blender too close to the top and the hot apples spit out of the corner and gave me a nice little blister.
3. Once you have all of your apples blender and in the slow cooker add your sugar and spices. My slow cooker holds 6 quarts so adjust your measurements if necessary.
- 1 cup Stevia
- 1 cup coconut sugar (you can also use brown sugar)
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
4. Stir in your ingredients and set the slow cooker to high. Cook on high for an hour and then change to low. I let my apple butter cook all night on low. I stirred it first thing in the morning and let it cook a few more hours on low. The last hour I left the lid off so that the apple butter would thicken. At this point your apple butter should have a rich brown color. Cook it until you reach your preferred thickness.
5. Fill your canning jars and either pressure can them for eight minutes with five pounds of pressure or use a hot water bath for fifteen minutes.
​6. Enjoy!

I think that it would be appropriate to say that we are overwhelmed with apples.  We picked 2 bushels last night and barely put a dent in one tree.  When Shannon and I went to pick some off of a different tree we realized that these were not even ready.  There was not one apple on the ground and the fruit was hard to pull from the tree.  

Right now we have three trees that we can get to and easily pick the apples, then we have countless others on the rest of the property that have been neglected and are hard to get to.  I am hoping that we will be able to have some help with our overgrown orchard from Purdue and their Horticulture Department.  I was thinking that this would be a good teaching and learning experience that would also help us out.  I thought that it would be nice for all of our trees to be producing fruit that we could easily pick and that we could then donate much of it to those in need.  The more I think about this idea the more it appeals to me and I want to make it happen.