How to Make Apple Butter in a Slow Cooker

Five pounds of apples is the starting weight. Granny Smith is Chef John's pick because the tartness survives all that sugar, but any firm cooking apple works. Push an apple corer straight down through the middle of each one to take out the core and the seeds with it.

Cut each cored apple into quarters, then slice the quarters into rough one inch pieces. No corer? Cut down four sides of the apple, close to but not touching the core, and chop what you cut off. You lose a little fruit that way and save a lot of time.

Move the chopped apples into a large slow cooker. They will come close to the rim and look like far too much for the pot. Give them an hour of heat and they collapse to a fraction of that.

No slow cooker? A heavy bottomed stock pot on the stove or a roasting pan in a low oven does the same job. The slow cooker wins because it runs all day unattended without scorching the bottom, which matters over a cook this long.

A cup and a half of white sugar goes on first, then half a cup of brown sugar. That looks like a lot sitting on top of the fruit, and it is still roughly half what most apple butter recipes ask for.

Season straight on top of the sugar: salt, a heavy hand of ground cinnamon, nutmeg grated fresh into the pot, and a pinch of allspice. Add apple cider vinegar for acidity and a splash of cold water to get things moving. Leave the stirring until everything is in.

Stir everything together so the sugar and spices coat the apple pieces, then put the lid on and set the cooker to high. The apples release their liquid, the sugar dissolves into it, and the pot turns soupy.

How long that takes depends on your cooker and how full it is. Look for softened fruit swimming in its own juice rather than watching a clock. Even on the high setting this stage runs for hours, which is what the name slow cooker is telling you.

Take the lid off and turn the cooker down to low. With the lid gone the steam escapes instead of dripping back into the pot, and the mixture finally starts reducing.

The color walks from pale yellow through gold to brown while the chunks fall apart into a rough pulp. Stir it whenever you walk past. Going by appearance instead of by hours is the whole method, because every cooker and every batch of apples runs at its own pace.

Once the fruit has collapsed, run an immersion blender through the pot until the texture goes smooth. Keep the blender head under the surface or it will fling scalding puree across the counter.

Work it around the edges, where whole chunks like to hide. No stick blender? Ladle the mixture into a countertop blender in batches, fill it no more than half full because hot liquid expands, and pour each batch back into the cooker.

The pot goes back on low, still uncovered, and this is where the spread earns its name. More water leaves, the sugars deepen, and the flavor concentrates into something far stronger than the puree you started the stage with.

Expect hours, not minutes. It is ready when a spatula dragged through the middle leaves a trench that holds its shape for a second before closing, and the color has gone dark reddish brown all the way through.

Pass the apple butter through a fine mesh strainer first, pushing it through with the back of a spoon. Chef John calls this step optional, and it costs two minutes against the ten hours already behind you.

Transfer it into clean glass jars while it is still warm enough to pour. Hot apple butter looks thinner and lighter than it will be cold, so hold off on judging the texture until the jars have come down to room temperature.