First step, if you're going to be processing apples on a regular basis, a peeler/corer/slicer is a worthy investment. We found ours at the grocery store for about $12 one year.
Prepare your jars. For every 12 pounds of apples you will get about 4 quarts or 8 pints of applesauce.
Next, wash, peel and core the apples. Since our handy gadget slices them also, we quarter the apple and are left with smallish chunks.
Treat the apples to prevent discoloring. I mix 1/2 cup of lemon juice with 8 cups of water to do this. Josh and Sierra do the peeling/coring and I quarter the apples and cut out any little pieces of core that might have been left behind and dump the pieces in the lemon juice/water.
Drain the apples and put in a large pot with enough water to prevent sticking. I find using my hands to scoop the apples out of the lemon water and just giving them a quick shake leaves enough water to not have to worry about adding any.
Cook apples over medium to medium-high heat until soft, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.
Working in batches, scoop the apples into a food processor and process to desired smoothness.
Add 4 tablespoons lemon juice (per 12 pounds of apples) and reheat the applesauce to boiling (be careful, it'll sputter and splatter). If you want, you can add some sugar and/or spices at this stage. We used gala apples, so we didn't add sugar. We did make some of it spiced though--just mix up to 4tsp of ground spices per 12 pounds of apples (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice). Your spices are less likely to clump if you mix them in with a little bit of sugar before adding to the applesauce(1/4 cup should do it).
Ladle the hot applesauce into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch head space, put on your lids and bands (see link above about preparing jars).
Process by boiling water bath for 20 minutes (for pints and quarts)
3 comments:
This looks decadent! :)
Thanks for the tutorial, Kimberly! I made a huge batch of apple butter with the same 77cent/lb. gala apples, and considered doing some applesauce, but did not have time with the stomach bug that ravished our house. I'll keep watching the sales and maybe I will get a chance again. It looks easier than I thought it would be.
It's very easy....less labor intensive than apple butter since you don't have to cook it down. We have one jar of last year's applesauce left and it was made December 12, so I suspect there will still be sales. Galas get to 67cents/lb about once a year (sometimes in 3 or 5 pound bags instead of hand picking them). Sweet potatoes will be on sale soon too. Last year we got them 20cents/pound at HEB and canned enough for the whole year---they're easy too, but you need to pressure can them.
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