Crock-Pot Apple Butter

Happy October!! This is the very best month around and I'm going to soak up all the amazingness of the next 31 days. Everything from pumpkin patches, Halloween décor and parties, to festive fall foods. 

For the whole month of October I will be posting themed recipes every week! As you know, we said goodbye to September and kicked this month off with the apple-inspired theme. Apples are a timeless fall fruit and I love the smell of them while they are baking away. With September being the official apple-picking month, I opted to begin these themed weeks with those beautiful, round fruits. Coming up, I will be sharing recipes under the following themes: Fall, Tailgating, Pumpkin Everything, and Halloween. 

This week and the following four are going to be SO much fun and my kitchen will be working overtime to turn these October recipes out! It's going to be glorious and my husband is going to love it too (what man turns down home cooked food?!). But for today, I want to share a favorite with you. 

Apple butter takes me back to childhood days; one specifically, at my grandmother's house, when all the extended family gathered to make apple butter in a big iron vat in the center of the summer garden. That day will always be one of my favorites. Because I don't have a huge iron vat hanging out around my house, I decided a crock-pot would do. It would also mean less work, and apple/cinnamon aromas filling my house for hours on a Saturday. This is the perfect recipe for fall, for spending a cozy weekend in, and for toast on Sunday morning. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

• What You'll Need
• 9 Golden Delicious or Granny Smith Apples (about 3.5 lbs)
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 TSP cinnamon
• 1/4 TSP nutmeg
• 1/4 TSP allspice
• 1/4 TSP cloves

• What You'll Do
• Peel and slice all of your apples. Place in the crock-pot.
• Next add all of the sugars and spices. Stir to coat the apples well. 
• Set the crock-pot on low for one hour. Then turn it to high for an additional five hours.
• In a blender, blend all of the crock-pot contents.
• Once thoroughly blended (no apple chunks remaining), add the apple butter back to the crock-pot, which is off,  and put the lid cock-eyed so the apple butter will thicken. Leave for an hour or until the apple butter as reach your desired thickness.