June 10th through 17th, there’s an awesome sale happening. It’s called The Natural Mothering ebook Bundle.
35+ books and FREE bonuses — a $525 value, for only $29.97!
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Each month, we have one book that is featured. This means it only costs you $5! Take advantage of this great deal to add to your collection and try some delicious new recipes!
This month’s book is Simply Summer. This summer, enjoy delicious, fresh recipes, like our favorite Mexican Pork Roast, Bacon-Wrapped Chicken with Italian Salsa (yum!), and Peach Upside Down Cake. Treat your family and friends!
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I made apple pie filling two years ago in an entirely different way and I can no longer remember how. I do remember I used honey instead of sucanat and that it wasn’t quite sweet enough. I had only made about 10 pints, but it took us two years to eat them all. Last year we still had several so Ben said “Don’t make that again.” I didn’t.
Then this spring, the kids suddenly decided apple crisp for breakfast was awesome, and we quickly went through the last of the pie filling. I decided that it was such a quick and healthy breakfast (really!) that I needed to make a lot of pie filling this year. So far I’m making quarts (the kids are a lot bigger and hungrier than they were two years ago) and I only have about 8. I see many more apples in my future….
Ingredients:
Directions:
Peel, core, and slice all the apples, and fill an 8-quart stock pot with them. I am unsure how many apples this took, but I’m guessing 10 – 15 lbs.
(By the way, these pics are from my test batch, not my final full batch, so the pot is not full here.)
Add the spices, sucanat, arrowroot, and water. Start with 1 1/2 c. and add more if you need it, 1/2 c. at a time. Some apples release more liquid than others. I used Jonathon, Macintosh, and some random heirloom apples, all fairly firm.
Stir it all up, and put it on the stove.
Put a lid on the pot and turn it on medium.
Allow this to simmer for a minutes, then stir it. Check it often because it can burn easily. Always stir up from the bottom so that the softening apples come to the top and the raw apples get moved down.
It will only take 20 – 30 minutes and then it will be done. The apples should be partially softened and the arrowroot and water should have formed a “sauce” around the apples.
Fill jars with the hot pie filling. I somehow forgot to take pictures of this part both times I did it….
You may need to add a tiny bit of water, up to 1/4 c. per jar (this is additional from what is listed in the recipe). I filled to about 1″ under the bottom rim of the jar. My jars were floating in the water before I did this! Plus, it makes just a little extra “sauce” around the apples and actually turns out amazingly well when it’s done. I tried to add extra water to the filling the second time and I added less water before processing the jars but I still added a little. You may not need to if your apples released more water than mine did. I’m not very patient.
Twist the jars around a bit to get the bubbles out. Put lids on the jars and put them in a hot water bath for about 20 minutes. Remove carefully with a jar lifter and set aside to cool.
That’s it! Now you have yummy apple pie filling, to be used in pies, apple crisp (coming next week!) or whatever you like!
**This post has been entered in Frugal Days and Sustainable Ways.**
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This is perfect timing! I just acquired 20 pounds of Granny Smith’s and was trying to decide what to do with them. Some will definitely go into this recipe. Thanks for sharing!
i know apple skins are a matter of personal taste in applesauce, but what about pie filling? can i be lazy and leave them on if my family isn’t skin-averse?
Can you freeze the filling instead of canning it? I’ve never canned and at 7 months pregnant I’m not ready to tackle that! Also, what about the skins? Do they need to come off?
Well, you’d need to cook it longer before freezing because the canning process finishes cooking it. I peel the apples because I prefer it that way, but you don’t *have* to.
Can I bake the apple pie filing in the soaked apple pie without canning it first? Of so, can I put the apples in raw??
You could probably put them in raw if you simply mixed all the filling ingredients together. It might need to bake slightly longer but it should work fine.
I’ve never canned before (most of what we eat in abundance is easily frozen, so we tend to go that route for preserving). However, my husband’s hunting this year, and we’ll need most of the room in our chest freezer for meat (we hope!), so I’m interested in trying to fill my shelves with cans instead of my freezer this fall. The directions for this recipe seem pretty simple, but is there something I’m missing as a canning newbie? I can really just put the filling in the jars, put lids on the jars, put the jars in hot water for 20 minutes, and be done? That sounds so easy; I just had to make sure!
How many jars and what size do you tend to use for this recipe? Thanks!
Yes, canning is pretty easy.
You can read my post all about the water bath method for more information: http://www.modernalternativemama.com/blog/2011/9/14/canning-and-preserving-water-bath-method.html.
This will make either 8 – 10 pints, or 4 – 5 quarts. We use the larger jars now because with four of us (me + kids) we will eat that much in a meal. I used to do pints when they were smaller and I only had 2.
Your recipes always make me drool and this one looks especially delicious and such good timing with it being prime apple season! Can’t wait to try it
Really wish you had a print button.
How many cans does this make?
About 4 – 5 (quarts).
So excited to try this. I was sad because I thought I had to give up my (sugary) home-canned pie filling since I’m learning more about real food. This will be a great replacement that I wouldn’t mind feeding to my daughter. There should be a book on real food canning! I don’t consider it safe to make “real food” substitutes for sugar and such in canning because the process is so finicky.