slow cooker spiced apple pumpkin butter
Fall and slow cookers are like apple and pumpkin…you need all the above to successfully create this Slow Cooker Spiced Apple Pumpkin Butter.
Well, I suppose it needn’t be fall to throw down some serious crockpot apple butter action, but the fragrance emitting soothes fidgety summer souls into downy autumnal blankets.
While I slept I swear the heating mixture infused my dreams with spice. I woke several times that night, maybe out of excitement or general inability to stay asleep, and the whole house beamed with tendrils of apple butter perfume. I don’t think it was particularly cool or pleasant out that night, perhaps not bad by Florida’s scale, but I imagined scarlet trees and clear skies and cinnamon brooms.
Though much of autumn lives in my imagination, September forward calms my mood even if the temperature deviations from August are marginal.
Apples to Apples…Or Not?
I know, I know. MANY varieties of apple exist in the grocery stores, including some very odd varietals I couldn’t even begin to recommend for one type of consumption or another. I saw one that had the word “galaxy” wedged into the title. The hell?
Golden delicious, Fuji, Gravenstein, and Braeburn are popularly recommended. Generally, softer apples. I chose honeycrisp because they’re my absolute favorite apple to date, and I’m a deviant and tend not to listen to premade lists unless the advice is indisputable. Apple preferences are highly individual, and while you won’t find me touching a Granny Smith with a six foot pole, someone with an affinity to the standard schoolyard apple might create the absolute best jar of apple butter known to man.
In other words, go with your instinct. If you have no instinct, you’re shit out of luck, bro.
Hey, Punkin
Pumpkin adds a special taste layer to this apple butter. It’s hard to put words to the flavor of pumpkin, but the undertone is certainly there: earthy, a tinge begging for a partnership with spice. Both flavors suit one another in a toast spread. The pumpkin boosts the smoothness and switches up the taste just enough to keep your mouth wondering is this apple butter or pumpkin butter?
Leave It to the Crockpot
Halleloo – no peeling apples here. All you need to do is slice out the core, then dice the apples into relatively small chunks. Mine were anywhere between 1/4 inch and 1 inch. All of the blend is getting pureed eventually anyhow, so perfect aesthetics are useless and a total waste of your energy.
Toss the diced apples into the bowl of your slow cooker along with pumpkin puree, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg, apple cider, and a touch of lemon juice (which helps offset the sweetness and aids with preservation). Give it all a stir. If you’ve more time and patience, cook on low for 8 hours, up to 12, I found, since I had to wait a bit to puree in order to not jar J out of his slumber. If you’re an impatient hooligan, high for 4 hours, up to 6.
After that cooking period, take your immersion blender, which I hope to GOD YOU’VE BOUGHT BY NOW, and puree the apple butter. I know some of you stubborn ninnies haven’t invested yet in an immersion blender. Good news is you can use your regular ole blender for the job. Please be careful and don’t scald your fingers. Transfer about a cup of the butter at a time to the blender, puree, and repeat.
Whichever setting you used before, set the crockpot to low and let the now-smooth butter heat gently for another hour.
Ready to store? Divide the butter between some heat-safe and clean jars. Keep in the fridge up to a week, or the freezer up to month. If you’re into canning, follow the directions of someone much wiser than I. This recipe cans beautifully, however, so you can save some for next year, or a midsummer hankering, or give a batch away as gifts.
Serving suggestions? Spread on toast (No Knead Overnight Pumpernickel Beer Bread would be rad) or bagels with some peanut or almond butter, in cocktails (maybe add a dab to a Spiced Apple Cider Rosemary Margarita?), even as a component for salad dressings.
Tried this recipe out? Leave a comment below with your thoughts, and don’t forget to come say hi on Instagram and show me what you made!
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 lbs honeycrisp apples
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ginger powder
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 cup apple cider
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
- Core and dice the apples. No need to peel!
- In the bowl of a large slow cooker, combine the diced apples, pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg, apple cider, and lemon juice. Cover and cook on low 8 hours, or high 4 hours.
- Using an immersion blender, puree the now-soft apples until very smooth. Alternatively, if you haven't listened to me up to this point, you can transfer small batches to a traditional blender and puree.
- Cover the slow cooker and heat an additional 1 hour.
- To store, transfer to heat-safe jars or containers. Apple butter keeps in the refrigerator for up to a week, or the freezer up to three months. This recipe is also PERFECT for canning, but I'm not an expert so search around the interwebs for methods.
