Crock-Pot Applesauce

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     This week all of my recipes have apples in them.  When I think fall I think of apples and pumpkins and have been on a huge fall kick.  I just bought a ton of apples and will be using them throughout the week.

     I was out yard sailing on Saturday as I do most Saturday mornings. I hadn’t had a lot of luck and was tiring quickly. I was in Cumberland, which is about 20 minutes from my house, when I passed the Fruit Bowl. The Fruit Bowl is our local fruit and vegetable market. I don’t get down there to often because it’s in an inconvenient location but the fruits and veggies are great and the price is usually better then at the market.

     When I walked in the door the first thing that greeted me was a huge display of apples. I’ve been in a fall mood for the past two weeks so I went to see what the price was. Turns out they were baking apples and were on sale for 59 cents a pound! I promptly chose three pounds of Gala apples and three pounds of Granny Smiths. I had no clue what I was going to do with them, but I figured I think about that later.

     After asking some of the ladies on the What’s Cooking? board on The Nest for some apple recipe suggestions, I came out with three recipes I couldn’t wait to try. The one I was most excited to try was the crock-pot applesauce. I love applesauce, especially when it’s warm and has a hint of cinnamon to it.

     I got home from Zumba around 8:00 and after taking a shower I had a craving for applesauce. It was pouring down rain and cold outside, so I thought the hot applesauce would be perfect for breakfast. I peeled the apples then used my apple slicer to slice and core the apples. This made it so much easier and faster then doing it by hand.

     I got it all together and in the crock-pot at 10:00pm. The mouth-watering aroma of apples and cinnamon woke me up at 4:30 am. My alarm was set for 6:00am so I just got up and checked on the applesauce.

     It looked so good! It smelled heavenly. Seriously-it smelled like warm apple pie in my kitchen. I couldn’t wait to try it so I had a bowl at 5 o’clock! It tasted as good as it looked. The applesauce was warm with a light sweetness and had undertones of cinnamon. It’s the perfect breakfast dish for a cold, rainy morning. My husband was talking about adding it to his oatmeal when I was walking out the door for work, and he doesn’t even like applesauce.  He did however, eat a bowl of this homemade applesauce this morning and really enjoyed it.

Crock-Pot Applesauce (adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking)

6 large apples, skinned, cored, and cut into 8 pieces (I used 3 Granny Smiths and 3 Galas)
Juice of 2 lemons (I used about 1 ½ lemons because they were juicy)
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
3T. brown sugar
¾ c. water

1. Skin, core, and cut the apples into eighths. Put the pieces into the crock-pot. Add the juice of the lemons and the water. Pour in the vanilla. Add the cinnamon and sprinkle the brown sugar on top.

2. Stir just to combine the ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. When the apples are super tender, mash with a potato masher or a large fork.

**Note: I cooked the apples for 6 hours on low then mashed them. I then sprinkled another tablespoon of brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon on top of the applesauce and cooked for an additional hour. It was fabulous!

3 Comments

  1. This sounds delicious! I have a beaba babycook and I use it all the time to make Alessia (and sometimes us too) applesauce, but what a great idea to use the crockpot! You can get so much more!

  2. Looks delicious. I bet your house smelled absolutely wonderful! It makes me want to go make this right now, but I know I’d wake up in the middle of the night starving! (it’s about an hour before I go to bed.)

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