Easy Homemade Apple Butter Recipe For Autumn

Apple butter isn't actually butter. There's no dairy in it. The name comes from the texture: it spreads like butter, smooth and thick.

It's made by cooking apples down very slowly with sugar and spices until almost all the moisture is gone and the sugars start to caramelise. What you're left with is a dark, concentrated spread with an intense apple flavour.

It's brilliant on toast, stirred into porridge, spooned over Greek yoghurt, or used as a filling in a sponge cake. It also keeps well, which makes it a genuinely useful thing to make in large batches during apple season.

What kind of apples to use

You want apples with some flavour rather than just sweetness. Bramley apples are the obvious choice if you're in the UK. They break down quickly and have that sharp, tart flavour that balances nicely against the sugar.

Cox, Braeburn, or Russet all work well. A mix of Bramley and one eating variety gives you tartness plus a bit of natural sweetness, which means you need slightly less added sugar.

Avoid anything too watery or bland. Golden Delicious, for instance, doesn't bring much to the table and the result can taste a bit flat.

Equipment

You don't need anything unusual. A large, heavy-based saucepan or casserole dish for the stovetop stage, a roasting tin or ovenproof dish for the oven stage, and a stick blender or food processor for the final blitz.

A jam funnel is helpful for getting the finished apple butter cleanly into jars, but it's not essential.

How to sterilise your jars

This matters if you want the apple butter to last. Jars that aren't properly sterilised will cause the contents to spoil faster.

The easiest method: wash your jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse them, then place them on a baking tray in the oven at 140°C (fan 120°C) for 15 minutes. Fill them while they're still hot. You can use sterilising tablets too.

The recipe

This makes roughly 3 to 4 standard jam jars, depending on how much you cook it down.

What you'll need:

1.5kg apples (weight before peeling and coring)

200g caster sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of your apples)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp ground allspice

Juice of one lemon

100ml water

Method:

1. Peel, core, and roughly chop your apples. The size doesn't matter much as they'll eventually be blended.

2. Put the apples in a large, heavy-based pan with the water and lemon juice. Cook over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 to 25 minutes until the apples are completely soft and collapsing.

3. Blitz the cooked apples with a stick blender until smooth.

4. Stir in the sugar and spices. Taste it here. If it's very tart, add a little more sugar. If it's already quite sweet, hold back.

5. Pour the mixture into a wide, ovenproof dish. The wider the dish, the more surface area, and the faster the moisture evaporates.

6. Place uncovered in the oven at 140°C (fan 120°C) for 1.5 to 2.5 hours, stirring every 30 minutes or so.

7. It's ready when it's dark brown, very thick, and a spoonful dropped onto a cold plate doesn't weep any liquid around the edges.

8. Spoon into sterilised jars immediately. Seal and leave to cool completely before refrigerating.

How to tell when it's done

The colour change is your main signal. The apple mixture will go from a pale, mousy beige to a rich brown as the sugars caramelise. This is what gives apple butter its depth of flavour.

The plate test is the most reliable check. Put a small plate in the freezer when you start cooking. When you think the apple butter might be ready, drop half a teaspoon onto the cold plate and leave it for a minute. If it holds its shape and no liquid pools around it, it's done.

If there's still a ring of watery liquid around the blob, give it another 20 to 30 minutes in the oven and test again.

Common mistakes

Not cooking it long enough. This is the most frequent issue. Apple butter that hasn't been cooked down far enough will be thin and watery once it cools. The long oven stage is what you can't shortcut.

Using too much sugar too early. Adding all your sugar at the start and then finding the mixture is too sweet partway through is frustrating. Taste it after blending, before you add the sugar, and adjust from there.

Covering the dish in the oven. You need the moisture to evaporate. A covered dish keeps it in, and you'll end up with apple sauce rather than apple butter.

Not stirring during the oven stage. The edges cook faster than the centre, and if you don't stir it, the sides will start to catch and burn while the middle is still loose.

A note on the spices

Cinnamon and cloves are the classic combination, and they're classic for good reason. If you'd prefer something a bit different, cardamom works well in place of the allspice, and a small amount of freshly grated nutmeg can go in alongside the cinnamon.

Star anise is nice if you add one or two whole stars during the stovetop cooking stage, then fish them out before blending.

The spice amounts in this recipe are a starting point. Apple butter is forgiving, and adjusting the spicing to your own taste is part of the process.