Pippimamma’s Applesauce Recipe

• Prep time: 15-20 minutes depending on how fast you are at peeling and coring apples

• Cook time: 30 minutes

• Yield: Makes about 1 1/2 to 2 quarts.

Apples vary in their sweet and tartness.  This recipe is a guide.  Feel free to adjust the sugar, lemon and cinnamon amounts to your taste. You can even leave the sugar out if you are using sweet apples.

If you use less sugar than this recipe suggest, you will likely want to reduce the amount of lemon juice as well. The lemon juice brightens the flavor of the apples and balances the sweetness.

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 lbs of apples (about 7 to 10 apples, depending on the size), peeled, cored, and quartered* (use apples varieties that are good for cooking such as Granny Smith, Pippin, Gravenstein, Mcintosh, Fugi, Jonathan, Jonagold, or Golden Delicious)

• 3 to 4 Tbsp. lemon juice (more or less to taste)

• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

• 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar

• 1 cup of water or Apple Juice

• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

*To prep the apples, use a sharp vegetable peeler or paring knife and cut away the outer peel. Then quarter the apple and use a paring knife to cut out the tough core parts from the quarters. Or use an apple peeler corer.

Method

1.) Place the peeled, cored, and quartered apples into a large pot. Add the lemon juice, cinnamon, sugar, water or Apple Juice and salt. (You might want to start with half the sugar at this point and add more to taste later.) Bring to a boil on high heat, then lower the temperature, cover the pot, and maintain a low simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the apples are completely tender and cooked through.

2.) Once the apples are cooked through, remove the pot from the heat. Remove the lemon peels and the cinnamon stick. Use a potato masher to mash the cooked apples in the pot to make a chunky applesauce. For a smoother applesauce you can either run the cooked apples through a food mill, or purée them in a blender. (If you use a blender, do small batches and do not fill the blender bowl more than halfway.)

Add more sugar to taste. If too sweet, add more lemon juice.

This applesauce is delicious either hot or chilled. And I love putting it on everything!  Porkchops, cottage cheese, vanilla ice cream or yogurt.

Freezes well and will last at least a year in a cold freezer.