I started first with fresh picked apples.  I sliced them, and put them into the microwave for about 10 min. or until tender.

Next, I put the apples through my Roma sauce maker.  A food mill will work too.  Then I put the applesauce into a pan and put them in the oven.  Sorry I forgot to get a picture of this step.  You can put them on the stove to cook or cook them overnight in a crockpot.  I use the oven method, but am thinking of trying the crockpot.  Here is my recipe that I use.  I got it from the Mennonite cookbook.

Apple Butter

1 gal. applesauce, 6 3/4 cup brown sugar (this can be adjusted to taste), 1 cup apple cider or vinegar, 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves.  Mix ingredients together.   If using oven, put into an oven safe pot, bake at 350 degrees for 3 hrs.  stirring frequently.  I stir mine about every 30 min.  If using top of stove, cook on low for 1 1/2 hrs.  stirring much more frequently as the stove top method is more likely to stick to the kettle.  If using the crockpot method, put in the crockpot and cook overnight.  Stirring only occasionally. 

The result.  Beautiful applebutter.  I like this recipe much better than any other I have tried.  I have used a recipe that called for cinnamon red hots.  It makes the applebutter a red color.  We prefer the dark brown color.   This recipe is very friendly.  You can purchase store bought applesauce, use the crockpot method and it requires very little effort to have delicious applebutter.  You also can freeze this instead of canning it. 

Temperature here this morning is rather chilly.  Mid 40′s with clouds and rain.  No fog yet.  I guess I’ll be drying clothes inside today.  Take care and God bless.

We learned a valuable lesson yesterday.  First I’ll start on Friday evening.  As you all know we met at the pastor’s house to begin peeling apples for our apple butter.  We peeled 6 bushel.  We decided to put them in salt water overnight so they would not turn brown.

On Saturday morning about 8:00, we built the fire and loaded some of the apples into the kettle.  As the apples cooked down, we would add more to the kettle.

All day we took turns stirring the apples in the kettle.  Fun but hard work.  We had a wonderful day of fellowship with a great meal.  However, we did not get any applebutter.  Before we added the sugar, (Thank you, Lord) we decided to taste the applesauce.  YUCK!!!!!It tasted terrible.  We reviewed all we had done and came to the conclusion our mistake was soaking the apples in the salt water overnight.  The salt reacted with the cooper kettle and the apples were very bitter and metallic tasting.  We ended up throwing them away.  No applebutter, however, we did all have a GREAT time.  It was a lot of fun.  I would do it all again even with the same results.  We are talking about trying again maybe in Oct.  We’ll see. 

Today is a rainy day here in Floyd. No complaints though.   We really need the rain.  Kinda chilly.  Mid 50′s.  We are not having bible study tonight so I think today is a snuggle in and relax evening.  I hope your Sunday will be just as enjoyable.  God bless.

My accomplishment for the day.  This cake goes by several different names.  Some call it a stack cake.  Some call it a lassie (molasses) cake.  No matter what name you call it, it is just plain GOOD.  When I was growing up in the mountains of southwest va, this cake was very popular among my mom’s family.  You very seldom had any type of family get together that someone didn’t make this cake.  Of course, as a young girl I took this for granted.  Ate the cake and never thought about learning to make it myself.  Then we moved away from family and of course I wanted me some stack cake.  I called my aunt and got the recipe.  It has taken much trial and error but I think I’ve just about got it right.  This is a recipe I want to pass down to my girls.  Old mountain recipes will be lost if we don’t teach the next generation how to make them (even if they don’t want to learn).  If anyone is interested in the recipe, here it is:  1/2 cup oil, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs,   1 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 cup hot water, 1/2 cup molasses, 3 cups self-rising flour.  Mix all ingredients together.  Turn mixture onto floured surface.  Knead until slightly stiff.  Divide into 6 parts.  Put wax paper into round cake pans. ( I do three at a time)  Take each section of dough, spread out thinly in cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Romove from oven.  Place on cooling rack.  Repeat process for the other 3 sections.  Spread apple butter between the sections.  Let set overnight to allow the apple butter to moisten the cake layers.  Then serve.  Many enjoy this cake with buttermilk.  Any questions, just leave a comment or e-mail me.  Enjoy and God Bless.