Making Homemade Applesauce with Four Kinds of Apples

It’s apple season in Michigan and the trees here are full with beautiful red and gold jewels! There are so many great varieties of apples, and I have always liked to use a blend when making apple pie, apple crisp, or homemade applesauce. Making applesauce couldn’t be easier and it is a real treat! Serve it warm or cold – and your guests will love it!

12 apples (mix up the varieties – make sure you have some sweet, some tart). I used a blend of Macintosh, Jonagold, Ida Red and Honey Crisp.
3/4 cup of water
Sugar to taste (anywhere from 1/8 cup to 3/4 cup, depending on how sweet the apples are and how sweet you like your applesauce)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (if desired)

Peel apples. Slice and then dice apples – discard cores. Put in heavy bottomed pot with the water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook, covered, stirring occasionally. Apples will start to break down and after about 25 minutes, use a potato masher to break up apples into a thick sauce. If you like it chunky, then just mash the apples less.

Taste for sweetness. Depending on the apples, you may want to add sugar or not, but if you add sugar just put in a little at a time until you get to your desired sweetness. Stir in cinnamon, if using. Reduce heat and simmer another five minutes. Remove from heat. Serve warm or allow to cool, transfer to airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to a week.

Well hi there food friends it’s Kevin and MaryAnn behind the camera and welcome to Cavalcade of food at home sister and I are at home today and um we were at uh one of the farmers markets here um couple days ago and check this out M we got apples don’t we

Yes we do and uh here in Michigan anyways Michigan is a really big apple producing state and apples are grown all over the state of Michigan and frankly uh there’s a lot of parts in the country that do a lot of Apple growing um so maybe you happen to be lucky enough to

Be in an apple growing region uh so when basically September through November is Apple time here and that means going to the apple orchards and the farmers markets and apple cider and apple everything and uh I was I still May because I’ve got a we got we got apples

Still M maybe I’ll make a pie tomorrow an apple pie I’ve done one on cavalcada food I did it years ago I think probably at the cottage um I’ll put a link somewhere in or you can search for it uh if you want to see

How to do an apple pie but you know what I’m going to make this time May something really simple um and something that we can have with dinner which is apple sauce how about that sounds good we like applesauce don’t we yes we do um and

Applesauce is really easy to to make so when I make a pie I like to use a variety of apples so like here Maryanne I’ve got some Janna Golds and some MacIntosh and some Ida Reds and some honey crisp uh thrown in for uh a little

Sweetness and so I’ve got a dozen apples here and so what we’re going to do is we’re going to prepare these as I would for a pie or an apple crisp or anything else now when you’re making apple sauce uh you can if you want you can keep

The uh skins on it’s up to you I don’t like to keep them on because sometimes some of the Skins tend to be on the bitter side um so I just assume take them off so what I use is I just use a good old vegetable peeler may have you ever seen those

Gizmos that peel apples they’re kind of like on a crank and they turn around yeah yeah I don’t have one of those so anyways it’s okay I just use a vegetable peeler I find it does a good job does not take off a lot of apple and gets a right down to business

And I’m going to just peel them here like so and I’ll put them in a bowl and I’m going to do that to all these these dozen apples here and then I’ll cut them up for our applesauce we’re making homemade here on cavoc fruit at home well well may all right we’ve got

Our apples peeled uh I’ve got a pot here put the apples in now if you have one of these little gizmos uh sometimes they’re handy basically um you’ve got a hole there which you put over the core and you just go down like that and you’ve got your Apple sliced um very

Neatly and you’ve got your core which we don’t want so uh you can use one of these if you don’t have one of these hold on now of course this one’s there we go if you don’t have one of these do not fret because you can whoa just use a knife

So and just sort of cut around here’s our core we’re just going to go down here and then like so and like so and like so so here’s the core and then we can just cut these apples up into chunks as if we were kind of slicing up for a

Pie so I’m going to get all these apples here CED and sliced and then I’m going to add I’ve got 12 apples here and I’m going to add to these 12 apples about 3/4 of a cup of water um and that’s should be enough to get things started I know that doesn’t sound

Like a lot of water for 12 apples but you know what apples are mostly M Water that’s right like most um other fruits and vegetables um there’s a lot of water so we should be okay um with just that amount so let me let me finish up here and then we’ll go

To the stove and we’ll get cooking with our homemade four Apple applesauce okay honey we got our pot on the stove here and you can see there’s my water I put 3/4 of a cup of water in here it’s just coming to a boil and of course you know apples as

They cook they the oxidation starts see how they’re starting to turn brownish yeah and um so they’ll continue to get darker but basically what you want to do is you want to cook these over medium heat you want to keep that simmer going um until these these apples are

Going to gradually break down now I’m not adding anything in terms of sugar or seasoning yet um I want to see how the apples taste on their own uh and then I’ll determine how much sugar maybe should be added and you know everybody this is one of these things where it’s too

Taste how much how sweet you like your apples sauce or how not sweet um whether or not you prefer to put a little cinnamon in it um or not uh so that’s up to you but we’re coming up to a boil here and we’re going to just let these

Apples cook away you could I don’t know if you they’re already sort of starting to flatten a little bit because as they cook and get hotter it’ll release their water and then it’ll all go in there so anyways this is probably going to take oh 25 30 minutes or so um for those

Apples to really totally break down uh and then we’ll come back and see how we’re doing in terms of what we need to add um to get it to our liking we are making a homemade applesauce using four different kinds of apples on today’s caval food at

Home so may I just want let’s show our friends these apples have been cooking now for oh about 15 minutes you see what’s going on see how some I don’t know if you can tell some of them are really getting pulpy now and they’re starting to break down

Slowly and we’re just going to give these a little stir I’ve turned the heat down and we’re just going to see how it’s already can you see how we’re already making applesauce that’s the other thing we like our applesauce fairly smooth right but there is such a thing as chunky

Applesauce and if you wanted to keep yours chunky maybe you’d want to cook it for another all five 8 minutes or so and leave it and kind of let it ride right there so that it still has the texture but we like ours really soft and almost as a puree

So um and of course because we used four different varieties of apples some of those apples are firmer it’s just their natural texture and some of them are really soft and it’s the soft ones that are already turning to Sauce so I’m going to put the Li back on and we will

Let this do its thing okay Mars it’s been about 25 minutes now so come on in and take a look see what we got now now I’m going to get our friend here you know what this is right to Masher that’s right and today it’s an the Apple Masher today it’s an apple

Masher so what I’m going to do is for uh those apples that were just a little firmer I’m just going to help break them down a little bit very easy to do we’ve got a real nice consistency here going of the apples beautiful color sort of a light brown Okay stir that up too because I really want all those four different varieties to really meld okay now I’m going to take just a little taste just to see wow it’s actually M you know I put in a couple of those um oh honey crisp three of them were honey crisp or and

Uh it’s on the sweeter side naturally and so if we wanted to sweeten it up just a little bit this is where everybody I’m going to tell you to do it to taste so I’m going to put just a little sugar in in here we’ve got M um what’s our favorite sugar Pioneer

Sugar and where is it made Croswell Michigan thank you very much made from the finest sugar beets grown right here in Michigan in the thumb I’ve got a/4 cup I’m going to put half of one I’m going to put an e/ of a cup of sugar in there and that’s

All cuzz we do not like our we normally we buy applesauce don’t we normally get the unsweetened kind yep that’s it so we don’t like super sweet applesauce but to each his own and again just taste it and see um start with a little bit like

We’re doing now I do like a little cinnamon in my applesauce and I think my sister does too don’t you yes I do so we’re going to put oh maybe a half a teaspoon or so in there again this is uh just to taste just to give it a little hint of

Cinnamon we don’t want a spicy applesauce and I’m going to let this cook now with the sugar and the cinnamon in for about another five minutes and then we will come back for our final Tas in well here it is May the final product put a little bit in here

Now uh fresh homemade applesauce is wonderful to serve warm I think it’s a real treat it’s almost like the inside of an apple P there um and certainly great with a lot of you know pork and even chicken I mean I like applesauce with everything don’t you yeah uh but I think that

Um you know let it come uh cool down on the stove and you know put it in a a sealable container and um keep it in the fridge and you know it’ll keep a a week um there’s no no you saw what this was Apples water a little sugar a little cinnamon

That’s it that’s all that’s in here so look at that though how beautiful is that love the color m m delicious just wonderful and if you have guests over for dinner and they’ve never had like people think oh applesauce you serve homemade applesauce as a side and you will wow your guests

Because it is really special certainly easy enough to make the hardest part was peeling and slicing up the apples so anyways all right I’m going to save the rest for dinner can um I thank my sister for working that camera wel thanks TOS uh and let’s thank our food friends for

Watching me and remind them what that magical website is cavoc food.com you got it and and we ask that um you subscribe share and like if you’re so inclined we hope everyone’s having a beautiful Autumn stay well everyone and we’ll see you again real soon back here on cavalcada food bye bye