Making Applesauce

Last weekend we got busy making applesauce.  I have 3 apple trees out front and two of them  dropped their apples weeks ago.  The third tree, just outside my mudroom door has my favourite tasting apples.  Over half of the apples have already dropped off so I figured that we had better do something with them fast:  make applesauce!

While 4 of my sons replaced my mudroom front door,  I climbed the ladder and picked about 20 lbs. of apples.  My granddaughters Kalia and Livi arrived just in time to help!  We got out the biggest pot and filled it with water.

cooking apples

Then my daughter-in-law Jeanette and I proceeded to cut the apples up into quarters, about 5 lbs. at a time, carefully removing any bad parts.  I don’t spray my apple trees with anything so they are pure and organic ……….. and often oddly shaped.  The apples boiled until they were soft then I scooped some out into my food grinder.   My granddaughters each took turns churning the food grinder around making the applesauce ooze through the bottom while keeping the remaining skins, pulp, and seeds in the grinder.  That’s the fun part!

grinding cooked apples

After a few spins, we backed up the grinder and scooped out the leftover parts and composted them.  After all those apples were processed, Jeanette climbed the tree and picked another 25 lbs.!  We just kept making apple sauce until we ran out of time.

picking apples

 

Afterwards, I used some of the applesauce and spread it on a  small, greased cookie sheet – I was going to make fruit leather, a.k.a. ‘fruit roll-ups’.  I spread a thin layer of applesauce and placed the cookie sheet in the oven with the oven light on.  There is enough heat produced by an incandescent light bulb to heat up an oven.  Overnight, this applesauce turned into delicious apple ‘fruit roll-ups’.  I first made this before commercial fruit roll-ups were on the market.  One of my children, Robin I think, used to take some to school in his lunch.  It was so popular with his friends, rumour has it that he sold some and made a tidy profit!  lol

Homemade apple ‘roll-ups’

Applesauce was one of the first ‘solid’ foods my babies ate when they were around 6 months old.  I used to fill ice cube trays with it and freeze it.   Then I’d pop out the frozen applesauce cubes into a freezer container, put them in a bag back in the freezer, and just take one out whenever I needed it.   Today, applesauce can be used in many recipes and be substituted for oil called for in any recipe.