September means our counters disappear under apples: ours, the neighbor’s overflow, whatever’s on sale at the stand down the road, and the ones I forage. I used to feel obligated to bake and freeze all of them. These days I do something better: I let the crockpot do the work.
Applesauce, Then Apple Butter, From the Same Pot
Here’s the trick that changed apple season for me: applesauce and apple butter aren’t two separate projects. They’re the same batch at two different stages. And they are EASY!
Core and chop your apples (don’t bother peeling, they blend in fine), toss them in the crockpot with a splash of water or cider and whatever warm spices you like and sugar if you want. Then let it go low for several hours until it collapses into sauce. If you left your peels on, you want to toss it into a blender or use an immersion blender now. That’s it. That’s applesauce. Jar it, freeze it, eat it warm with a spoon standing at the counter – no judgment here.
But if you leave that same pot going, lid cracked or off so the steam can escape (I tuck a wooden spoon under the cover), and let it keep reducing for several more hours, it slowly deepens into apple butter – darker, thicker, concentrated down into something spreadable and rich. Sometimes I add a little more sugar. Same batch, same pot, just more time and patience. No candy thermometer, no standing over a stove stirring for hours like your grandmother probably did. Just time.
Depending on how my days are flowing, I often core and chop my apples in the evening, splash with water and leave the crock pot in the fridge. Then in the morning I set it up to cook on low all day while I’m at work. That evening I decide whether to preserve the applesauce or to let it cook down to apple butter. It can either cook overnight, or be refrigerated and cook while I’m at work the next day. I do waterbath my apple butter so that processing time is what determines my cooking schedule. But doing batches in the crockpot is a sanity saver!
Then I Got Greedy and Tried Other Fruit
Once applesauce-into-butter clicked for me, I couldn’t stop there. I started buying peaches, pears, and plums and running them through the same process.
Peach butter is soft and honeyed. Pear butter is subtler, almost floral. But plum butter is the one that surprised me. It develops these deep, almost chocolatey notes as it reduces, rich enough that I’ve caught myself wondering if I could pass it off as dessert on its own. Worth trying if you’ve never made it.
Apple Crisp: My Honest Answer to Pie
Full confession: I have never made peace with pie crust. I’ve tried the cold butter, the vodka trick, the food processor method… and mine still comes out either tough & sad or amazing – I never know which to expect. So most years, when I want that classic apple dessert, I make crisp instead. Sliced apples, a good streusel topping with oats and butter and cinnamon, into the oven until it’s bubbling at the edges. It gets all the same comfort of pie with none of the crust anxiety, and nobody at the table has ever once complained.
But I know pie crust is possible; I’ve eaten enough of other people’s to know it can be done by mere mortals. So I’m asking:
What’s your tried-and-true pie crust secret? Butter or shortening, ice water tricks, resting time, rolling technique,… I want to hear it. Drop it in the comments. I may finally attempt a pie this year, and I’d rather learn from you than fail alone.
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Whatever you make of this season’s apples: sauce, butter, crisp, or a pie the rest of us are still afraid to try, I hope your kitchen smells like cinnamon for the next few weeks.
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