Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce

Last weekend I made applesauce, and it is so good! I made a cinnamon applesauce that my family loves. My daughter and I went to Farmer's Market and bought 3 boxes of apples which turned out to be about 63 lbs (we went a tad over the 20 lb a box weight) and this many apples made me 8 pints of apple butter, 1 large bag of frozen apple pie slices (of which I am making apple pie soon), 14 quarts and 4 pints of applesauce. We have enough for quite a while and it will save me money at the store from not having to buy jars of commercial applesauce and this is better for my family anyway.

The apples I used is a combination of McIntosh and Cortland apples locally grown here. The McIntosh gives the sweetness while the Cortland gives the tart tang and it is a great cooking apple, that is what I used for pie slices that I froze. Apples that are not recommended for making applesauce is Red Delicious and Golden Delicious because they are just too grainy for applesauce. You want a firm apple that is crispy and sort of tart. Granny Smiths are also great for applesauce and especially pies.

With this recipe, it is the basic recipe and depending on how many pounds of apples you have, you want to adjust the amounts of the other ingredients of course. I ended up using about 40 lbs of apples for applesauce so adjusted accordingly. So, basically to make this recipe with 40 lbs of apples, I just used 5 times the amounts listed here. This is also a great recipe if you just want to freeze it in plastic freezer containers, the freezing instructions are at the bottom.

Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce

8 lbs of cooking apples, cored and quartered (about 24 cups)
2 cups water or apple juice
4 Tbsp cinnamon
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar

In a 8-10 quart kettle, combine apples, water or apple juice, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer, covered for about 15-20 minutes, stirring often. Press apples through a food mill or sieve. Return pulp to kettle and stir in sugar. If necessary, add 1/2 to 1 cup water for desired consistency. Bring to a boil. Makes 6 pints. (24 half cup servings). {This is what it should look like in the steps. The first picture is when I first put the apple pieces on the stove and the second picture is the applesauce after I used the potato masher to mash it to my favorite chunky consistency. Note the difference in a short amount of time, apples cook down quite a bit which is why you need a lot of apples to make applesauce for the whole year}.




Boiling Water Canning Method: Ladle hot sauce into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes for pints and 20 minutes for quarts.

Freezing: Cool applesauce. Spoon into freezer containers, leaving about 1/2 inch to 1 inch headspace to allow for expanding of applesauce when freezing. Seal, label, and freeze.

Notes:
1. You can substitute 1/3 cup of red hot candies for the cinnamon per batch and it gives it a nice rosey color and the cinnamon flavor.
2. You can use a potato masher instead of a food mill to get the applesauce to desired consistency, I like chunky applesauce so I use the potato masher method instead of a food mill. The food mill leaves the applesauce smooth.
3. You can put the cut and cored apples into a solution of 1 gallon of water, 2 Tbsp vinegar or apple cider vinegar, and 2 Tbsp salt to prevent browning but for applesauce this is not necessary, but you would do it for freezing apple slices.