Applesauce...

[TreasonousBastard]

Found a few bags of Fuji apples at a great price, but 15 pounds of apples will go bad long before I eat them, or even give them away.

So, make applesauce and freeze it.

Aside from some questionable choices, like ground cloves, my pots of this stuff have turned out well but...

Everywhere I go I am told to peel and core the apples. Of course core them, but why peel them? I core 'em, slice 'em and toss them into the Ninja gadget and they come out perfect for cooking. No problems with texture or flavor.

Why peel them?

[cilla4progress]

1. My husband comes from a long line of amazing

Applesauce makers. They never remove the skins. The food mill takes care of any undesirables.

Cool.. we live on applesauce and he is famous among our friends for his!

Also, he uses cloves, Vietnamese cinnamon and nutmeg. Organic sugar from Costco. Lately some
brown sugar. He riffs on the recipe.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. I 'overcloved' but, yes, cinnamon and nutmeg are essential...

experimenting with maple flavored syrup, vanilla, various berries, mint, and other stuff has been fun.

I am diabetic, so fruits themselves have sugar enough and I have to artificially sweeten. If there's a decent brown sugar replacement, that would be interesting.

[Major Nikon]

2. I never peel them

Most of the fiber is in the peel. I suppose some don't like the texture, or they are trying to duplicate commercially made applesauce. I also like to throw some Granny Smith or some other sour apple in the mix and process them such that there are plenty of chunks in the mix.

[Cairycat]

3. No need to peel them if you are using a food mill

it will keep the peel out of the applesauce. Can also do this with a strainer, but it is veeeery time consuming.

I suppose if you had a powerful enough food processor, you could just grind them in too.

Applesauce with the peel from red apples is a lovely (usually) pink color. If you want the standard yellow color, you would have to peel them.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. When I was growing up we had apple trees and we canned a lot of applesauce.

We always peeled and cored them. We saved the cores and skins to cook, strain and used that to make apple jelly.

One year we must have forgotten to add the pectin to one batch because, although it thickened, it never jelled. There must have been just enough natural pectin in the skins. We found, however, that it made delicious syrup for pancakes and french toast.

[oldtime dfl_er]

5. Can I leave the skin on

and slow cook in the crockpot?

[csziggy]

6. When our apple trees were still bearing we made lots of apple butter

Gallons of it some years. I used the bruised and odd shaped apples and added the cores and peels from the ones we sliced for pies. I chucked up the apples, threw cores and all into the pot and cooked it until everything was soft.

Then I ran the mess through the food mill which removed the seeds and hard parts of the cores and pieces of skin that had not dissolved. After that the apple butter went back in the pot, was seasoned, ladled into jars and put through the canning process.

That stuff lasted for ages even though I gave away tons of it. The last time I made any was in 1993. When we moved into this house in 2008 we found three jars of it. They were still good, well sealed and everything. My husband ate two jars but finally I threw out the last jar - the lid had gotten knocked and it had gone moldy.

I prefer canning for things like this - it doesn't need power to stay good and doesn't take up space I need for items that cannot be canned or that canning would change the texture of, like vegetables, fruits and meat.

[cilla4progress]

11. What's the difference between

Applesauce and apple butter?

[csziggy]

13. Apple butter is cooked more while apple sauce is closer to fresh apples

The apple butter I made was not as textured as apple sauce. Because of all the peels it was slightly jelled, also.

I prefer apple butter because I have a problem digesting uncooked fruit sugars.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Why are ground cloves questionable?

As for peeling the apples, depending on what you're making, the peels can, in my experience render the cooked apples impossible to eat. A while back my neighbor gave me some dessert with apple slices (can't remember exactly what it was) and he hadn't peeled the apples. The cooked apple skin was impossible to chew. I had to spit out the two or three mouthfuls I tried, and tossed the rest.

Applesauce is probably vastly different, and I'm guessing the entire apple, skin and all, is sufficiently pulverized in the process that the skins aren't a problem.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Turns out it wasn't cloves themselves-- just that I used too much.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. Aha! I get that.

I've done that sort of thing on occasion.

[pansypoo53219]

10. i prefer plain + lumpy applesauce. no spices. only use lodi/transparent. high acid. tart.