Home Canning Apple Butter with Recipe

I’ve been doing home canning for the past 30 years and love it. I don’t do it because I have to, I do it because I enjoy it and its a great way to preserve food from our backyard garden. When winter rolls around I love getting into my pantry and serving food to my family that I personally preserved. It’s healthier for us and let’s face it…9 times out of 10 it tastes better than store bought.

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Over the years I’ve tried several different apple butter recipes but always find myself coming back to just your basic recipe from the Ball Blue Book of Canning. It’s a classic, nothing fancy…but oh, so delicious! The recipe will make approximately 6 half-pint or 3 pint jars.

The Ball recipe is below. I don’t cook down my apples via stove-top like they do in the recipe. I put them in my large slow cooker, set on HIGH heat and let them cook down over 2-3 hours. I drain out all of the water after they’re done cooking and put the soft-chunks into my Ninja Blender and blend until smooth. I then transfer the applesauce to a large pot, add my granulated sugar & spices and then follow their recipe to finish up the cooking and processing in my water bath canner.

Time-Saving Tip: I use an apple corer and peeler that I purchased from Amazon. It saves me time (a lot of time) and produces less waste. I recommend investing in a good one so that it will last you for years if not decades.

Home Canning Apple Butter Recipe

12 large apples
2 cups water
4 cups granulated sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Prep: Wash apples under cold running water, drain. Core and peel apples, then cut into quarters. (I dice them).

Cook: Combine apples and water in a large saucepan. Cook apples at a simmer until soft. Puree mixture in a blender or food mill. Measure 2 quarts of apple pulp; return pulp to the saucepan. Add the granulated sugar and spices, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook at a gentle boil over medium heat  until mixture is thick enough to mound on a spoon, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.

Fill: Ladle hot butter into a hot jar, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Remove air bubbles. Clean jar rim. Center lid on jar and adjust band until fingertip-tight. Place jar on the rack elevated over simmering water in boiling-water canner. Repeat until all of your jars are filled.

Process: Lower the rack into simmering water. The water needs to cover the top of the jars by at least 1″ in depth. Adjust heat to medium-high, cover the canner and bring water to a rolling boil. Process half-pint or pint jars for 10 minutes. Turn off heat. Let jars cool in the canner (rack elevated over the water) for 5 minutes. Remove jars from canner to allow them to cool down to room temperature. Label jars before storing them.

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