making Applesauce

I picked up a jar of applesauce at the big box store.  Completely disappointing.  Tastes a little like apples.  Has the texture of baby food.  No spice to it. 

Its crap.

I'm spoiled.  I've made the stuff plenty of times with apples right off the tree.  Peel and core, toss it in a pot, let it simmer nice and slow for a while.  Add some cinnamon or allspice when its done.  Pack in jars, put them in a water bath for a half hour.  It will last for years.

I've got an apple peeler/corer.  Looks like a Norpro, got it for 10 bucks if my memory is intact.  Last time I madeit I took off the little handle, connected the drill directly to the shaft.  Peeled those apples in seconds.  Peelings were hitting the ceiling.  Made fast work of 20 pounds of apples-15 minutes and the job was done.
Gave the cores and peels to the chickens, made their day.

I don't strain the applesauce when I'm done and I don't blend it either.  It comes out with some lumps and thats just fine with me.  Not like its hard to chew.  If the sauce comes out crunchy, you did something wrong.

I like to use at least 2 different apples in a batch: a tart and a sweet.  Granny Smith/Macintosh is a good mix.  If I can get some red delicious too, it makes a fine batch.  Here in Florida the apple selection is whatever was shipped in from up north, and its $1.49/#.  If the only way to get decent food is to make it myself then so be it. 

I'm with you store bought doesn't compare to home made.
I will use berries with some of the applesauce I make. Pick up cranberreis from the coast in the fall when we're over here and mix it in with the apples...excellent.
Blueberreis and raspberries are also a good mix with the sauce 1/4 by volume is what I use but it's pretty much by guess and by golly.

Do you have a pic of the drill connected to the contraption?

I have several of the contraptions and they are rather excellent for applesauce.  Although I leave the peels on.

I'm no photographer.  The red and blue handle in the pic above unscrews at the shaft.  The end of the shaft fits easily i the chick of the drill.  Tighten the chuck and get to work.

personally i like to leave some skin on if it's red, just for a hint of color.

my favorite type of applesauce is when i just core the apples, chop into good sized chunks, and throw them in the crockpot for a while. it tastes almost as good as roasted, and if i want to be really awesome i'll separate the liquid from the solids (it tastes heavenly) by throwing it in a colander when i take it out. then they can be mashed/squashed/blended or just eaten as is. i like lumps and skin in the applesauce, frankly, but that's just me.

i am intrigued by your idea on cayenne/cinnamon. i do love cinnamon and eat a lot of it (after discovering that there were different types) but i also love cayenne. may have to do some research!

The type of apple can be a factor here. Some varieties of apple have tougher skin than others, and ripeness can also factor in.

For me, it is the hard bits in the core that bug me the most, and I find that my apple peeler corer doesn't get them all and wastes the good nutrition that's just below the skin. So I quarter, core, chop and cook. Then I put it in my vegetable ricer which does give quite a fine texture, but it also gets out most of the skin - anything that's too tough to go through the ricer plate!

Another factor is where the apples are grown. I grow my own, so I know that there's nothing nasty on the skin. I'd be more worried about cooking the skin if they were industrial apples.

I don't add anything when I'm canning, as that way I can decide bottle to bottle what I'm doing with the sauce. If we're eating it plain, a tiny swirl of maple syrup is awesome!

Smoked a few apples last year before making a batch of sauce and it was amazing!

Also, I keep the peels and cores and make scrap jelly, syrup, and apple cider vinegar. Just fun bonus stuff to do with your compostables.

Okay, this was an old thread ... But I want to make apple sauce and was searching Permies for a recipe, this was what I found.

I do know how to make Dutch 'appelmoes'. That's only cooked apples (without skin and core) with sugar. Like what's sold in supermarkets, not very interesting. I'd like to have something more flavourfull!

The apples I have now I picked at an old abandoned orchard, just at the side of the bicycle path I was riding. I didn't know it was there. It seems I was blessed to come along at the right time! Maybe I need to go there once or twice again ...  
There were three different apple trees and one pear tree. The pears look like cooking pears (I picked a few too). The apples are three different varieties. On one tree all apples looked very bad (with spots all over), I didn't pick those. One tree I picked from had red apples, the other tree had apples with only a little bit of red.
I know there are hundreds of types of apples, and I don't mind what apples they are. I think all apples can be made into apple sauce.

Because there are two apples trees at my (rented) allotment plot too, I know a little bit about apples from old apple trees. They often have larvae (small 'worms') in the core, with ugly brown parts where the larvae affected the apple. I don't want to have those larvae and brown parts in my food, so I need to cut the apples in pieces. It isn't a problem to keep the skin on. After cooking I can choose between two different kitchen utensils to make a smooth sauce. I have an electric immersion blender or an old 'roerzeef' (how do you call it? A 'food mill strainer'?) that belonged to my mother, so it can even be from the 1950s ...

I don't have an electric 'crock pot'. I can cook on the gas stove, or in the (electric) oven. In both cases I can use my Pyroflam glass pots. I think the oven is the best, because the gas burners always make a burned spot in the middle. Burned apple affects the taste ... Or do you think that gives the right taste to apple sauce?

QUESTIONS
What else do you add? Sugar? Syrup? What spices?
How long does it cook?
Do I need to stir it while it cooks?

Yes, we always chop our apples into bits and cook in a big pot with just a little water in the bottom.

I use the old-fashioned tool you describe to get the skins mashed and any tough ones stay in the food mill and go to the compost.

I don't add any sugar when I'm making it, but the apples I'm using are fairly sweet. This partly depends on your plans for the sauce. If you will use some of it in baking, I would leave it plain. If you plan on eating it straight I'd add whatever spices give you pleasure. I think I even recall someone saying they add some sort of hot pepper to theirs! If it tastes bitter, a little bit of vanilla is supposed to help with that.

I don't buy commercial sauce because I find it boring. Hopefully your sauce will be anything but!

Personally, I wouldn't worry about "spots" on apples unless it seems to be mold. If you're by that way again, maybe take a picture?

I've got about 6 liters that I'll be canning this afternoon. For canning, since mine are sweet apples, I will likely add a little bit of lemon juice for safety.

We tend to just do a rough chop and partial peel of our apples or pears. Cut out the cores and any bad spots and take a bit of the peel off. ( we try to keep up a high fibre intake)
I don't really spice anymore. Mostly we'll throw in any decent juice or syrup we have on hand along with any aging fruit that was hanging about. The vinegar laced syrup from our preserved sour cherries is a great addition. Also a splash of a fruit liquor or some vanilla extract can go in. A handful of some frozen berries can both boost the taste and improve the colour. Haskap are really great for that aspect.
Then I cook just until soft and use an immersion bleander to smooth it out a bit. We then usually freeze it in fairly small lots and then thaw as needed for topping our breakfast bran.

I loved my Great Grandmother’s applesauce. She had thinly sliced lemon peel in it! This is my attempt at reproducing hers.

Applesauce Izora

8# tart apples cored and quartered (24c)
1 large lemon halved, squeezed and thinly sliced (or 2T lemon juice)
2T cinnamon
3/4c sugar

In large saucepan place 4c water, apples, cinnamon, and lemon in pot. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 mins stirring often. Remove from heat.

Remove estimated 4c portions, mash with potato masher until desired consistency. Set aside. (If you like a smooth texture, blend in blender instead.) Repeat until all applesauce is mashed.

Dissolve sugar in 1/2c warm water. Mix into apple mixture. Add water 1/2c at a time until desired consistency is reached. (2c?)

Spoon applesauce into hot canning jars leaving ½ inch headspace. Water bath for 20 mins.

Makes about 8 pints.

I add the sugar after cooking to keep stickiness of counters and utensils to a minimum. I like a thick chunky texture. What this recipe produces is even thicker than I prefer. I consider this a plus, as fewer jars are needed. I just thin it a bit with water as I use it.

I haven't had enough apples to make this since 2009! The tree split and died. Yes, the sauce still good. I ate some last month with no ill effect. I'm saving the last few jars for nostalgia till the new tree comes in. High hopes for 2025!

Note: I do think the sauce has darkened a bit. That's ok though.

Thank you all for tips, suggestions and recipes.
First here's a photo of the abandoned orchard (probably the house had gone because of a new road. The orchard and more greenery is between the bicycle path and the road for the cars).


When the apple sauce if made I'll show it too.
First I made tomato ketchup; the organic farm had very ripe tomatoes for sale (cheap). I didn't make a photo of the mess in my kitchen ... maybe I should have done that ;-)

Today I made a first batch of apple sauce (try-out).
It went well and tastes very good. I cooked the pieces of apple (4 apples + 1 pear, 1 plum and 1 tiny crab-apple) with a little water and lime juice in the oven for 45 minutes. Then I added cinnamon ('kaneel' in Dutch) and blendered it until it was smooth. Then tasted ... it needed something sweet! I added a small tablespoon of honey. Not just any honey, but from bee-hives that were in a nature reserve, a very tasty honey!
After cooling down I put one half in the freezer, the other half in the fridge...
Here are some photos:

before

after

had half-of-the-half in my dessert, covered with 'vanille vla' (intranslatable Dutch dessert dairy product)
Here you see how many fruits are still left to make a second batch.

Great thread! We used to make a very flavourful juice from jelly crab apples. It had a lovely red colour and dear wife canned it with a bit of sugar and a cinnamon stick. I found some jars in the basement that were 14 years old -- still sealed but mostly good for jumpstarting the compost pile at this point.

BTW, I just have to add this:

If you put a little salt in your applesauce, you might find you don’t need any sugar at all. The salt makes it taste sweeter!

My applesauce method is a bit different than has been posted, so thought I’d add it to provide another alternative My mom started this one, I’ve continued doing it since I was canning on my own at age 14, and now my daughter makes it.

Core the apples in four cuts, keeping the knife close to but not crossing into the core. Do not peel. Set the square cores aside to make vinegar. Toss the apples into a turkey roaster (preferable, as mine holds 22 quarts) or a large pot. If apples are wormy or bruised, just cut around the bad bits. Add a cup or so of water to the pot to prevent scorching and turn on the heat. I like to add some lemon zest at this point for flavor, but I don’t bother with treating them for oxidization. Cook until they are soft but not mushy, stirring regularly.

Scoop the cooked apples and their liquid into the Vitamix. Pulse if you want a chunkier sauce, blend for smooth. Blending pulverizes the peel into oblivion and creates a thick, almost creamy sauce that I’ve never had anywhere else. Dump the contents of the blender back into the pot/roaster, stir, and keep going until it’s a consistency you like. I usually will then add a bit of brown sugar, which gives it a depth of flavor, cinnamon, and a tiny bit of cloves. I’ve also added either applejack liquor or spiced rum and let it cook down a little bit more, which is very tasty indeed.

I also will let the mass cook down until it’s thick and quite brown to make a delicious apple butter.

Shawn Foster wrote:Core the apples in four cuts, keeping the knife close to but not crossing into the core. Do not peel.

That's the technique I use to process crabapples (8 quick cuts -- two cuts per quarter turn, one shallow toward the blossom end and a 45 degree cut toward the stem). It's the only efficient method that works because they're way smaller than a regular eating apple. There is surprisingly little left on the core.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Shawn Foster wrote:Core the apples in four cuts, keeping the knife close to but not crossing into the core. Do not peel.

That's the technique I use to process crabapples (8 quick cuts -- two cuts per quarter turn, one shallow toward the blossom end and a 45 degree cut toward the stem). It's the only efficient method that works because they're way smaller than a regular eating apple. There is surprisingly little left on the core.

Perhaps a diagram for the spatially challanged?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Shawn Foster wrote:Core the apples in four cuts, keeping the knife close to but not crossing into the core. Do not peel.

That's the technique I use to process crabapples (8 quick cuts -- two cuts per quarter turn, one shallow toward the blossom end and a 45 degree cut toward the stem). It's the only efficient method that works because they're way smaller than a regular eating apple. There is surprisingly little left on the core.

Perhaps a diagram for the spatially challanged?