a simple real food recipe :: baked applesauce

This is one of my favorite recipes to make in the fall 🙂

Why?

Because it makes the whole house smell…just. plain. delicious!

I know it can sound daunting to core up 4-5 pounds of apples, but it is so worth it! And it really goes pretty fast!

We usually do about 4 or 5 of these batches throughout the fall and first part of winter. We end up with a good amount from each batch to freeze up for the year. This year we will probably be doing more like a couple batches since apple prices here are so high. We had too early of a warming this spring and then preceding frosts that took out the apples in Michigan. It was so sad to see all those apple blossoms fall off from the freeze too fast.  No U-Picks for us this year 🙁

I do a baking method. I hesitated titling the “baking” part because I think it may make it sound like a long task – but it only needs a little over an hour in the oven! It’s so quick and easy!

You’ll need:

4-5 lbs of apples (just use whatever kind you’ve got!)

2 TB real lemon juice

1 TB pumpkin pie spice or 2 tsp cinnamon

¼ cup filtered water

1. Quarter and core your apples. If you want them peeled, you can do that before you cut them.
2. Put the water and apples in a roasting pan with a lid, or dutch oven.
3. Toss the apples with the lemon juice and pumpkin pie spice.
4. Bake at 350 degrees with the lid ON for 1 ½ hours.
5. Let them cool a bit before pureeing in food processor or blender to the consistency you want.

Kitchen Tips:

1. This makes the house smell SO good. Which is why I don’t do a bunch of batches all together – I’ll do up a batch when I know I’ll be home for the afternoon or evening, and make the house smell like heaven 😉 If you need to batch up more, you could fit 2 roasting pans full in the oven.
2. I store our applesauce in pint containers and these little Ball freezer containers. The small ones hold about a cup – which is a perfect split snack for the girls 😉 I’ve been sending a half of one of those small containers with my 3 year old for her morning snack at preschool. This batch made 2 pints full and 4 of the smaller containers.
3. We like our applesauce a little “chunky” but you can puree it further and it will be nice and smooth.
4. This took me about 10 minutes to get into the pan, then hands off for a little over an hour, and about 15 minutes to puree – not long at all. And that is doing it in batches in my smaller processor – if you have a real blender or processor, you can do it in one batch most likely super fast!
5. You can leave out the pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon) if you like your applesauce plain – it is still really good! I used to batch up baby food apples this way!
6. I don’t think the applesauce needs extra “sweet” but if you think it needs more, by all means add some honey or maple syrup 🙂

YOUR TURN!

What is your applesauce making method? Let me know if you try this way and how you like it!

This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday, Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter, Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday, and Too Many Jars In My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday!