My husband Mark loves homemade applesauce. And so do I. You might not think there would be a great difference between the kind you buy in a jar and homemade, but trust me, there really is. Maybe it’s because with something as simple as applesauce, which is really just apples and a bit of sugar cooked down, the pure flavor of the raw materials really comes through.
This year I was excited to make a batch because I had the chance to go out to the country and buy apples directly from the grower. Fifer Orchards in Wyoming, Delaware, raises a large variety of apples. Even better, they sell the “seconds” or bruised and nicked apples, for dirt cheap prices out of huge bins right on site at the orchard. I bought an enormous sack, probably at least a peck of apples, for only a few dollars. That’s when the economics of making applesauce work for you, as well as the flavor benefits!
The hardest part of making applesauce is the preparation. Peeling twenty or thirty apples by hand is no joke! Modern kitchen equipment is no help at all here. What you want is something that is nineteenth century technology—an apple peeler gizmo like the one in the photo above. It makes short work of peeling and coring apples. With one of these the job may still be messy, but at least it will be quick.
After peeling and coring the apples, slice them into quarters or chunks. Put them in a pot with a little water and cook for about half an hour. Then it’s back to the old-fashioned techno gadgets for me. For pulping the apples after they’re cooked, I use a manual food mill with the coarsest disk in place. It gives perfect applesauce consistency—textured and not too smooth.
Here’s my very simple recipe, adapted from The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook, ©1963. I love this cookbook, and stole it from my mother’s shelf the first chance I got.
Homemade Applesauce
20 – 25 medium apples
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
Wash, peel, quarter and core the apples. Cook them with the water until tender, about 25 to 30 minutes depending on the variety of apple used. Remove from heat and process through a food mill using the coarsest disk. Add the sugar and cook for five minutes longer. Cool and chill before serving. Makes about two quarts.
Applesauce freezes very well. You can experiment by using different blends of apple varieties. My favorite by far is to use two-thirds Golden Delicious to one-third Fuji. I find that combination produces my Platonic ideal of applesauce flavor and texture.
