Apple butter

Making black butter in Jersey

Apple butter is a highly concentrated form of apple sauce, produced by long, slow cooking of apples with cider or water to a point where the sugar in the apples caramelizes, turning the apple butter a deep brown. The concentration of sugar gives apple butter a much longer shelf life as a preserve than apple sauce. Apple butter was a popular way of using apples in colonial America, and well into the 19th century. There is no dairy butter involved in the product; the term butter refers only to the thick, soft consistency, and apple butter's use as a spread for breads. Typically seasoned with cinnamon, cloves and other spices, apple butter may be spread on buttered toast, used as a side dish, an ingredient in baked goods, or as a condiment. Apple butter has also been known to be mixed with vinegar while cooking to provide a small amount of tartness to the usually sweet apple butter. The Pennsylvania Dutch often include apple butter as part of their traditional seven sweets and seven sours dinner table array.

In areas of the American South, the production of apple butter is a family event, due to the large amount of labor necessary to produce apple butter in large quantities. Apple butter is also used on a sandwich to add an interesting flavor, but is not as commonly used as in historical times. Traditionally apple butter was and is prepared in large copper kettles outside. Large paddles are used to stir the apples and family members would take turns stirring.

In Appalachia, apple butter was the only type of fruit preserve normally rendered into fruit leather.

Apple Butter Makin' Days has been held on the courthouse square in Mount Vernon, Missouri each October since 1967. Apple butter is cooked using century-old methods in huge copper kettles over open fires all day long. Similar events take place in various locations across the United States, usually in the late fall season.

In Jersey, in the Channel Islands, apple butter is known as "black butter" or "lé nièr beurre" and has liquorice among its spices.

Kimmswick, Missouri has an annual apple butter festival.

In Europe apple butter is commonly used in the Netherlands where it is known as Appelstroop (Apple syrup) and frequently eaten on bread with (or without) thinly sliced cheese. A sweeter version, made using pears as well as apples, is more popular in Belgium where it is known as Liège syrup (Sirop de Liège/Luikse Stroop). Other than in Benelux, apple syrup is a minority taste in western Europe, although it is sold in Germany, generally in health food shops, as Apfelkraut.

References

This entry contains information from the equivalent articles in the German and Dutch wikipedias.

External links

• "Stirring Up The Past", WBGU-PBS documentary Grand Rapids (Ohio) Applebutter Festival
• Apple butter recipe
• A simple Amish apple butter recipe
• Crock pot apple butter recipe
• The original easy apple butter recipe