Investment Cooking - Canning Applesauce

 

Earlier this week I brought in two boxes of apples in from the garage to make and can some applesauce.  I like to make my applesauce in my slow cookers because it cooks low and slow and I don’t’ have to worry about scorching it.  Plus I have the added benefit of being able to do other things while the apples cook down.

 

After washing all of the apples in warm water I cored and cut them into small chunks (I personally do not feel the need to peel the apples) filling up my large and medium sized slow cookers.  I added a cup of water to the large one and a half cup to the medium slow cooker.  After setting them on high I let them cook for about three hours stirring occasionally.

 

Once the apples are soft and begin to break down I get out my immersion blender and puree the apples until they are fairly smooth and the consistency that I like.  I do like my sauce to have a bit of texture to it.  Then I taste the sauce to see if I need to add any sugar to sweeten it or I leave it plain if I plan to use it in baking.  If I sweeten it I just add a little bit of sugar at a time and taste it until I feel it is sweet enough.  I tend to lean toward less sweet.

 

I fill hot clean jars with sauce, some pints and some half pints since I don’t always want to eat a whole jar of applesauce myself.  Then I clean the rims, add the lids and rings and load the jars into my water bath canner to process in boiling water for twenty minutes.  Once out of the canner I let them sit on a towel overnight to cool before labeling and putting the applesauce away.

 

These blueberries had been hanging out in my freezer for a while

This year I did one batch of plain slightly sweetened applesauce and then I made up a batch of cinnamon applesauce and something I’ve not done before.  I added blueberries to a batch and made blueberry applesauce and it is fantastic!  I really like it and it is really nice to have three varieties of different applesauce flavors on the shelves in my LTFS.

 

Blueberry applesauce

I think it would be nice to add peaches, rhubarb or strawberries to a batch of applesauce too.  You could do all kinds of different fruit sauces.  Hmmm.  I think I may be doing just that in the future.  Yum!