A Bushel of Apples, Put By for Winter

Every October there's a point where the apples start to win. A bag from the orchard sits on the counter, then a second bag shows up, then someone drops off a box of windfalls from their own tree, and suddenly there are more apples in the house than any family can eat fresh. That's when we pull out the big pot.

Applesauce and apple butter are the easiest preserving jobs of the year. Apples are naturally acidic, so you don't need a pressure canner. A deep pot of boiling water and a free afternoon will do. Here's how we go about it.

Pick the right apples

Mix your varieties. One kind of apple makes a flat sauce, and three or four make a good one. McIntosh breaks down quickly and gives you that soft, tangy base. Cortland and Empire bring a little more sweetness. A few Northern Spies add body and a bit of sharpness. Honeycrisp is lovely for eating but pricey for sauce, so we save it for the fruit bowl.

Bruised and odd-shaped apples are fine here. Cut out the bad spots and nobody will ever know. Many of the orchards around Georgian Bay sell seconds this time of year, and they're exactly what you want.

Applesauce first

Quarter the apples. If you have a food mill, you don't need to peel or core them. The skins add colour and the mill catches the seeds. Without one, peel and core as you go.

Put them in a heavy pot with about a cup of water or cider for every four pounds of apples, cover, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring now and then. In twenty to thirty minutes they'll collapse into a soft mush. Run them through the mill, or mash them if you peeled them. Taste before you add anything, because good fall apples often need no sugar at all. If yours are tart, add a little at a time. A squeeze of lemon keeps the colour bright.

Four pounds of apples gives you roughly six cups of sauce. Keep a bowl in the fridge for the week and can the rest.

Then cook some of it down into butter

Apple butter is just applesauce that's been cooked a long, long time. There's no butter in it; the name comes from the way it spreads.

Put about six cups of sauce in a slow cooker with half a cup of brown sugar (more or less, to taste), a teaspoon of cinnamon, a pinch of cloves and a pinch of salt. Prop the lid open with a wooden spoon so the steam can escape, and let it go on low for eight to ten hours. Give it a stir whenever you walk past.

It's done when it's dark brown and thick, and a spoonful on a cold plate doesn't weep a ring of liquid around the edge. Six cups of sauce cooks down to three or four half-pint jars. That sounds like a poor trade until you taste it on warm toast.

Canning it safely

Wash your jars and keep them hot, and use new lids. Fill applesauce jars to half an inch from the top and apple butter jars to a quarter inch. Run a clean knife around the inside to release air bubbles, wipe the rims, and put the lids and bands on fingertip tight.

Lower the jars into a canner of simmering water so they're covered by at least an inch, then bring it to a full rolling boil before you start the clock.

• Apple butter, half-pints or pints: 5 minutes
• Applesauce, pints: 15 minutes
• Applesauce, quarts: 20 minutes

Those times are for kitchens under 1,000 feet above sea level, which covers most of Simcoe County. If you're higher up, add time according to a tested canning guide.

When the time is up, turn off the heat and wait five minutes. Then lift the jars out onto a towel and leave them alone for a day. You'll hear the lids pop as they seal. Any jar that doesn't seal goes in the fridge and gets eaten first.

How we use it

Applesauce goes beside pork chops and roast chicken all winter, and into muffins in place of some of the oil. Apple butter is for toast, oatmeal and the cheese board, where it does wonderful things next to a sharp Ontario cheddar. A jar with a bit of ribbon round the lid is also the easiest Christmas gift we know.

When the shoppe opens in the spring, we'll be glad to swap preserving notes over the counter. Until then, if there's a tree in your yard dropping apples on the lawn, they're worth picking up. A winter of good toast is lying right there in the grass.