Growing up, my mom used to go to the store and buy huge jars or cans of applesauce for our large family which we kids slurped right down. I loved it, I mean applesauce is wonderful stuff right? Then I married into a family that had apple trees. My mother-in-law showed me how to make applesauce and well ... How in the world do those commercial applesauce makers manage to take all the flavor out of applesauce??????? They must juice it first and then use the leftovers to make it. One taste of real applesauce and you'll never go back!
Start with real apples. Green or yellow apples generally make the best applesauce if you follow my method. The skins contribute their color to the applesauce. If you are making apple butter or want to go through all the work of peeling the apples, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. At least that's my opinion. Martha Stewart might disagree, but I'm a country girl, not a gourmet chef.
Wash your whole apples and then cut them in half.
Remove the stems and the blossom ends. I'm told they make the applesauce bitter, though I've never tried it. Sounds reasonable so I'll accept this bit of passed down wisdom!
Remove any bruised or bad spots.
And two year old bites :) Actually I was surprised. I only found bites on this one red apple that he picked up first. I was really having to keep after him not to bite any other apples. There have been years when I've had to remove a multitude of two year old bites. They will typically take one bite out of any they can get their hands on.
Actually, you wouldn't even have to cut the apples in half if it weren't for the fact that every now and then you will run across an apple that a bug has penetrated. In that case just quarter it and cut out the core. Otherwise it isn't necessary to core the apples.
I always like to save some of the seeds. Last year I wound up with a lot of bleeding due to fibroid tumors. According to all the research I've done, fibroids are pretty common for women my age and most of them clear up on their own within 2 or 3 years. Apple seeds contain B17. B17 is very good for any type of tumor. I've been eating a few apple seeds every day since I learned about it. As long as I don't forget for days on end, I don't have problems with unusual bleeding. Amazing!
An electric roaster is a pretty good fit for a 5 gallon bucket of apples. You can use a smaller pan on the stove if you don't have a huge amount of apples.
Fill the pan and add enough water to cover about 2/3 of the apples. Cover and cook until the apples are soft. If you can be right there to stir often, turn up the heat. That will make the process faster.
When the apples are soft, uncover and cook off the water until the applesauce is the desired consistency. This will be about 1/2 the original volume.
Now you will need a colander. This is my favorite one. It has a handle that turns around while the metal piece pushes the applesauce through the holes, leaving the skins, core and seeds behind.
This is the one my kids grew up with. You place it in a big bowl and use the wooden plunger to push the applesauce through the holes. It works OK, but it is harder to handle. Not to mention that it is really easy for ambitious energetic children to splash applesauce on the ceiling with it.
Spoon the cooked apples into the colander and push it through. With this one you need to turn it clockwise several times and then do a quick counter-clockwise or two when it gets clogged up. If you are using a cone-type colander, you have to stop every now and then and scrape it with a spatula.
You can empty the colander when you think you've got most of the saucy part in the bowl or you can just keep adding more apples until you are done. With this colander, I'm prone to keep adding, but the cone type tends to get a little hard to handle if you don't empty it now and then.
This is what I have left over from my 5 gallon bucket of apples. It will go to my chickens. They love it!
I don't have a big enough bowl to put all the applesauce in at once, so I do have to stop and put it into containers 2 or 3 times during the straining process. If the apples are somewhat tart, you can stir in honey or sugar or whatever sweetener you prefer to taste. I like to use my big yogurt containers or plastic peanut butter jars. When I'm deciding what containers to use, I choose a container that is a size we will eat in one or two meals. It also has to have a wide mouth. If you don't have a wide mouth to serve it partially thawed. There's just nothing better than frozen applesauce! It makes great popsicles too! I use masking tape to label and date my containers and put it in the freezer for later.
I have canned applesauce if it looks like I'm going to run out of freezer space. There are glass jars that are made for the freezer. I only have a few of these jars. This is one I use for bacon drippings, but I'd love to have a bunch of them for applesauce. You could can lots of shelves full and put one or 2 in the freezer at a time.
I got about 15 pounds of applesauce out of my 5 gallon bucket of apples and an ice cream bucket of scraps for my chickens! Mmmm good!
God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue
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