Oven Apple Butter (3 hours)

If you have too many apples floating around your kitchen tables, I’ve got a delicious recipe for you. Oven Apple Butter basically cooks itself. Okay, a couple of stirs are needed during the 3 hours of cooking time but making apple butter in the oven is much more carefree in comparison to cooking it on a stove.

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Beautiful Brown Color & Caramelized Flavor

The deep brown color of the butter is thanks to brown sugar. The below recipe gives approximately 0,6 liters (2,56 cups) of apple butter.

You need 500 grams of apples. Apple chunks to be precise, not whole apples. The choice of apple variety is yours. I like to a mixed bunch of tart and sweet apples.

I make the butter with apple cider vinegar. So if you have more sweet apples, adjust the amount of sugar and add more vinegar to give your cooking a more tangy edge.

The flavors build during the 3 hour cooking time and become caramelized. And the texture! Apple butter is so smooth, like velvet. It’s so amazing not only on top of a toast but also in baking.

Don’t peel the apples unless necessary (remove damaged parts). You don’t need to core the apples either. This way you get more flavor and the skins also have pectin in them.

Remember to Sterilize Jars & Seals

Every time I do something with jars, I sterilize them. I recommend you do the same even though one might think that you’re making such a small amount of apple butter.

But then again, is it that much that one should do the whole wash process the long way? To me it’s not so I did the quick version.

It really takes less than 30 minutes to do this on the side:

• Wash jars, seals, and caps, spoons, canning funnel* and let them drain
• Pre-heat oven 100-125°C / 212-257°F (without fan)
• Warm up the dry jars for 15 minutes (middle rack, horizontal position)
• Quickly dip seals and caps, utensils in boiling water and dry

Oven Apple Butter

Print recipe

Cooking time: 3 hours 3 hours

Nutrition facts: NA calories NA fat

INGREDIENTS

• 500 g cleaned and cut apples (preferably a variety of tart apples)
• 100 ml apple cider vinegar
• 100 ml water
• 250 g brown sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Half of a vanilla pod
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt

METHOD

Wash apples and remove any damaged parts. Place the apple pieces in a medium-sized oven dish. Add liquids and mix sugar within the apples. Add spices and salt. Cut the vanilla pod in half, use both the seeds and the pod in cooking.

Cook 3 hours 165 °C / 320°F  (adjust if using the fan, middle rack). Give apples a couple of stirs and turns so that they cook evenly.

When the butter has caramelized, you can purée and push it through a sieve and cook 15 minutes more. If using peeled apple chunks, a hand-mixer is also an option to smooth the butter to the final texture. 

Can the butter in clean sterilized jars.  A wide steel canning funnel* is a great help if you don't want to mess with the jar sides and lids. Let the apple butter jars cool before transferring into the fridge.

 

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I’ve been adding apple butter to my morning porridge every day. And oops, I bought blue cheese from the store so I had to savor the moment with apple butter toast. It works, believe me.

Love, Saara