This is absolutely my favorite time of year for so many reasons. This year I have been blessed twice to be gifted with apples. The weather in the Midwest has created a bumper, delicious apple crop. A few weeks ago I shared a favorite apple pie recipe and today it is my husband’s favorite–apple butter.

Apple butter makes a wonderful gift for teachers, neighbors and a fun way to say thank you to that special someone. We’ve mentioned before that Kathy and I started working together in the test kitchens at Rival, the Crock-Pot people. A test that we executed on many a day was preparing apple butter in the Crock-Pot, slow cooker. It was designed to determine the approval for plastic lids when they were first introduced. We would simmer the apple butter for days to insure that lids were top quality. [Read more…]