Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Vanilla Apple Sauce

appelmos

I don't know if everyone knows this, but apple sauce? It is SO easy to make. Don't bother to buy it. Ever. It'll take you fifteen minutes, and be infinitely better than the store-bought version. I don't know what took me so long, because I just tried this very recently. Then again, I don't really eat a lot of apple sauce. Or I didn't. These past few weeks, I've had it on oatmeal porridge every morning!

I made this from hand-picked apples that a co-worker gave me, but apples from the store are of course perfectly fine. The less tart ones are better, as they generally fall apart a bit more. With harder apples, be prepared to cook them for a little bit longer. You can spice this up as much as you want, but I like using homemade vanilla sugar (you know, the kind where you stick a few vanilla pods in a jar of sugar and forget about it for a few weeks) and crushed cardamom. A cinnamon stick, whole cloves or star anise would also be nice.

Vanilla Apple Sauce

1 kg apples
50 ml water (3 tbsp + 1 tsp)
200-250 g homemade vanilla sugar
1 tsp crushed cardamom (optional)

Peel and core the apples. Cut into small pieces and place in a saucepan with the water. Cover with a lid, bring to boil, and then let it simmer for about 10 minutes. The apples should be fairly soft. If you're using cardamom, put that in the pan as well, right from the start.

When the apples are soft, remove the pan from the heat, and with a wire whisk, whisk until the apples break up. Add the sugar and whisk some more. That's it! Pour into clean jars, and freeze the ones you won't use right away since these don't contain any kind of additives for preservation.

Recipe in Swedish:
Äppelmos med vanilj

5 comments:

Rebecca Kline said...

That looks yummy. I know it sounds strange, but cottage cheese with applesauce got me through one of my pregnancies.

Colours and Textures said...

I have recently discovered your blog, thank you for your interesting recipes.
I have a Bramley tree in the garden as well as an old tree which probably Charles Ross. Both varieties are lovely cooked.
If there are any small apples I don't peel or core them just halve or quarter them and cook them like that then seive to get the puree. You get some extra flavour and vitamins from the skins and with some apples a pinkish colour.

Amanda said...

Oh, I do love a good homemade applesauce. It's one of the first things I learned how to cook.

I like to use rather tart apples, actually, and a handful of raisins, spices if I'm feeling spicy, then mash up chunky. (I use no sugar at all--none is needed with those raisins.)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm.....apple sauce! It's also very yummy to combine the apples with pears and cook a slice of lemon skin along with it (remove it later).

Jeanne said...

I know - I've been making my own apple sauce for abotu a year now and I'm never going back! It's also a great way to use up apples that are a little past their prime. I always have a container in the freezer, infused with star anise and cinnamon :)