During Labor Day weekend, our family went apple picking at Demarest Farms.  We picked at least 10 pounds of apples.  I took some apples into the office and gave some away to family and friends, but I still have quite a few left.  As luck would have it, I received my employee copy of Martha Stewart’s Slow Cooker cookbook which includes a slow cooker applesauce recipe.  Sofia likes applesauce as a bedtime snack so I decided to make a batch this weekend.

Ingredients:

6 pounds apples, peeled, quartered and cored

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups water

Tips for Prepping Apples:

• I peeled the apples before cooking them because I didn’t want to go through the extra step of passing the apples through a food mill or mesh sieve to remove the skins from the cooked applesauce.  Also, keeping the skins on will make your applesauce pink which I didn’t think Sofia would like.
• Once the apples were peeled, I cut and cored them using an OXO apple slicer.  This tool is great because you get similar sized pieces and remove the core all in one step.  It’s a time saver when you’re prepping 6 pounds of apples.
• Martha’s recipe suggests you use 4 pounds McIntosh and 2 pounds Cortland or Empire apples.  I used a combination of the apples I picked at Demarest Farms.  I could be wrong but I wouldn’t worry about the apple varieties you decide to use for this recipe.
• In case you were wondering, I weighed the apples whole – before they were peeled and cored.

3 Simple Steps for Making Slow Cooker Applesauce:

1. Preheat a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker on high.
2. Combine apples, lemon juice, sugar and water in the slow cooker.
3. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours until apples are very soft.  I used a slotted spoon to mash the large pieces of apples and achieve my desired consistency (see image below).

Keep in mind that for the first hour it looks like nothing is happening.  But, slowly, the apples soften and combine with the wet ingredients.  It was my first time making applesauce so I kept checking on it.  Don’t worry, the slow cooker is working it’s magic.

Storing Your Applesauce:

• This recipe makes about 8 cups of applesauce.
• Applesauce can be refrigerated in airtight containers up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 3 months.
• I divided my applesauce into 8 single serve glass jars.  These are recycled White Moustache yogurt jars.  4 oz jelly jars are also a good snack-sized option.  I froze the remaining applesauce in a freezer-safe container.

Sofia is our picky eater and she liked the applesauce.  This recipe was easy to make and is a healthy snack I feel good giving to the kids.  If you try this recipe, let me know how you like it.

Enjoy!

Jackie

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