HOMEMADE APPLESAUCE

This applesauce is so much better than store-bought. If you’re looking for my Amish cookbook, it’s available on my website https://socialsbylovina.com

I had almost half a bushel of apples left over from yesterday that I didn’t turn into apple cider. So, we’re going to turn them into apple sauce today. All you need is apples and some tools. I always use this thing because we always c them at home. We would do a dozen bushels and we always had to core at least six bushels in the morning before we went to school. We had to leave for school at 8:00. We always walk to school. It was about a quarter mile across the pastures. We had to climb through four barbwire fences to get there. So, you can imagine the amount of times we would tear our clothes and mom would get a little bit upset because we didn’t take good enough care that our clothes didn’t get torn because we were a little better than everyday clothes for school. Doesn’t really matter if you get this in actual center or not. It’s just the idea of cutting them up into pieces so they’re easier to work with. And can you imagine having like four or five kids all standing around with one of these things cutting up apples like this early in the morning right after breakfast trying to get ready to go to school so they’re not tardy because if you’re tardy you get punished. I’m popping them right into this big boiler because we need to boil them. Then at home we would always put them in a huge tote and then take them down to our wash house. Wash house is where we did our laundry, all of that stuff. If you go back, you can see a tour of my grandma and grandpa’s wash house and the kettle they use. So, we would always fill the top part of the kettle with apples to boil them and just build a fire underneath. If you’re cutting your apples up to make applesauce, you don’t have to trim any bad parts or wormholes or anything out. That’ll just go into the applesauce, it’s fine. And if you want really fancy applesauce the way the Amish do. They always have pure yellow applesauce from Yellow Delicious Apples for Sunday when they have company. You know, the everyday applesauce is usually brown because they don’t use fancy apples. I don’t know for sure. I think these are Macintosh apples, maybe. And that’s what they usually use. We’ve got these things all chopped up. Now, you need to add a little bit of water. Just enough so it doesn’t burn into the bottom. If you add too much, your applesauce will be very watery, which is not nice. In case you’re wondering how much applesauce you get from 12 bushels, it was usually around 200 quarts. So, I’m guessing I get around five, sixish quarts maybe from these if I press them really tightly. I don’t have the best press, so it might not do the best. Put these things on the stove and boil them until they’re mushy. Once your apples are all mushy, we’re going to take them off the heat and you can put them through your press right away, but they’re going to be very hot, which is going to make it hard to work with. So, I’m going to let these cool off a little bit before we put them through the press. And you can see they got very mushy. I stirred them around a little bit just so the top ones would get soft, too. For our press to put those apples through, I’m going to use this one. At home, we would always use a Victoria’s press. Those things are a lot bigger, a lot more complicated, but they also squeeze out a lot more chew. This one is loose enough, so I always put the pulp through twice to get more chew out. I’m just going to dump some water on the countertop here so it can suction on there. And then we start scooping our soft apples in there. The pulp comes out on my side here. you can’t see it. And then the applesauce comes out here. Just put it in there and start cranking. I got that all cranked through. And here’s the pulp. As you can see, it’s still very wet. So, I’m going to put it in and put it through again. I’m just going to keep repeating that until all my apples are cranked through. This is our applesauce. As you can see, it’s brown instead of yellow like it would be if you’d use yellow delicious. So, it’s everyday applesauce and not company applesauce. I’m done putting these things through the press and I got way more applesauce than I expected. So, let’s can it and see how much it is. I’m going to can most of it in these half pint jars if I have enough. If I run out of them, I have to can them in quart jars. And quart jars is not a good idea when there’s only two people to consume it. To prep my jars to can, I always wash them in warm water. No matter how clean they are, no matter when I if I just wash them yesterday, they always have to get washed in clean water. And if you’re putting something hot in, you should wash them in hot water or at least heat them up a little bit before you put your food in. I’m actually going to mix the applesauce up a little bit just so it’s all the same consistency because I had some thicker applesauce and then some waterier applesauce. If you don’t want unsweetened applesauce, you can add sugar to this. But these apples were very ripe. And something that I really hate is biting into a bite of pizza and applesauce. And the applesauce is sweet. Just fill your char up to the neck. I’m going to taste this applesauce and see if it’s good. [Music] It’s so sweet and delicious. This brings back so many memories. Also, just a little side note, if you have a baby and you want to get them started on food and you want to feed them applesauce, warm it up first before you try feeding it to them because babies hate cold applesauce. I ran out of half pine jars. I don’t have any pine jars. So, the quart cans we go. And the reason I’m using white mouse is because the last time I sent my husband to Walmart to get chars, I asked for regular mouse chars. And he came home with two cases of white mouse chars. So that’s what we’re using. If you’re canning something, you always have to clean the rims with a wet towel to make sure they’re clean or they will not seal. In my family, we do a lot of canning, so we’re constantly running out of these lids here and we would have a whole bowl full of them. So we would every time we can we would have to go through them and sort them and any ones with a little bit of dirt or a clink in it were throwing away because they wouldn’t seal if they had that on them. And if your char rooms are pretty dirty, make sure you wash your towel every now and then, too. Put your lids on there. I like to soak mine in some warm water before I use them so the rubber can expand a little bit so it suctions on the char better. And turn your rings on. And if you need a toy for your little child that is under a year old but likes to play with rattly things, take some of these rings, tie them on a piece of yarn and give it to them. That’s what we always use for toys at home. And me and my little siblings loved it. To can this we need to cold pack it, which means you put it in a container where you can boil it and then fill it up with water up until it comes to the top of the jar and then you just boil it for however long it recommends. For these we do 10 minutes. And because this applesauce is still warm, you can add warm or hot water so it comes to a boil quicker. If you’re curious how much applesauce this made, I got eight and 3/4. So I got one and 3/4s more than I expected. I don’t have a recipe for this. Just watch the video. It’s as easy as cutting up some apples, boiling them, and putting them through a press and you have applesauce. But if you do want my cookbook with a bunch of recipes, it’s on my website, socialsbyalavana.com, which I’ve linked over here on my profile. Or depending what platform you’re on, it might be in the caption of this video. I hope you guys go try making your own applesauce and enjoy.