Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Our weather has turned nippy late this year. Usually I start thinking about my fall season jams much sooner than November, but the heat and drought has made it difficult to imagine standing over a hot stove for so many hours.

Apple butter is a long standing tradition in this area. It was made out of doors over a wood fire in a large cast iron cauldron. This technique requires an entire day and much stirring. You have to have very strong arms to keep watch on a 50 gallon tub of bubbling apple butter.

The version I'm sharing with you today can easily be made in the home kitchen and is a festive addition to any holiday table. The red Hots Candy that is dissolved in the mix turns the apple butter a brilliant red. As with all apple butters, constant minding and stirring is key. A few tricks I've picked up since the first time I made this recipe is to run my apples through a food mill first, after steaming them in a colander. The mill will remove the seeds and skins. Another trick some of the old wives employ is to pour the half finished apple butter into a shallow baking or cake pan and finish in the oven. This preserves the color and keeps the apple butter from scorching.

Whatever you do, be careful of the bubbling hot mixture...this jam tends to bubble up and spatter easily. You will notice, if you have never made apple butter from scratch, that the texture is much more like a jam than the apple butter you buy in the store. Apples have lots of pectin in them, so really, those store bought apple butters are really more of a spiced thick apple sauce. Real apple butter has body and holds its shape when you spoon it out of the jar.