Slow Cooker Apple Butter

Apple butter does not actually have butter in it. Very tricky, apple butter. You had us fooled. What else do you have up your sleeve? Turning from this...



into this?



12 small apples (or about 8-9 medium apples)
1/4 cup apple cider (cider is preferred but juice is ok)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Peel, core, and chop the apples into slices. Don't worry about them looking pretty, just as long as they're all roughly the same size.



Put the apple pieces into the slow cooker, spread evenly. Pour the cider over the apples, and sprinkle each of the dry ingredients and the vanilla evenly over the apples.



Cook on high for one hour, then cook on low for 8-10 hours (I was ok with 8 hours, but if your apples are bigger you might need 9 or 10). Stir every few hours. Here's what I had after 2 and a half hours:



After 5 hours:



After 7 hours:



And at the end. You can see on the left side I started mashing the apples up with a fork. Just take the back side of a fork, or a potato masher and crush the apples while in the slow cooker. Or you could scoop them out into a bowl and do it, but I wanted to do it in the slow cooker in case they ended up needing to cook a little more.



Some recipes say to put the apple mixture into a blender (or use an immersion blender) once they're done cooking, which you certainly could do, but I wanted my apple butter to be a bit chunky.



Spread on a roll/croissant/biscuit/pancakes/potato latke. I used only 3/4 cups of brown sugar, but many recipes call for a lot more. I didn't want mine to be overly sweet, and the variety of apples (Gala, Golden Delicious) I used were already pretty sweet. If you use apples that are more tart, like Granny Smith, you probably want to add more sugar. You can do a combination of brown and granulated sugar, too. Apple butter can of course be made without a slow cooker, but this way was so easy. Plus, it makes your house/apartment smell good all day!