Some autumns see a lot of apples on the trees in our hills in Hawley. In such years, my neighbor Alice speculates that the literal windfall of apples has something to do with the hatching of swarms of bees just as the apple trees blossom in the spring.
This year apparently the bees didn’t swarm. Our trees have apples … but not a lot of them.
Even in a non-apple-y autumn like this one, I like to make as much applesauce as I can. This year I was forced to augment the fruit from my local trees with apples from an orchard.
I like to blend a variety of apples in my sauce for maximum flavor. This blending can make the applesauce a little tricky to cook as not every apple softens at the same rate. A little stirring of the pot takes care of this problem, however.
Applesauce is the perfect fall comfort food, and it’s easy to make, especially if you have a food mill.
Food mills render the peeling and coring of apples unnecessary. The skin, core, and seeds of the apple cook along with the sauce, adding flavor to the end product, and then get pushed out and discarded. The residue left in the food mill is surprisingly small.
If you don’t have a food mill, you will have to peel and core your apples. This involves extra work and makes it hard to extract the maximum amount of pulp from the fruit. On the other hand, you will end up with lumpy applesauce, which some people prefer to the smoother version.
Even with the food mill, I often core the apples before making sauce. The cores are the densest part of the apples so removing them reduces cooking time.
My food mill requires me to push the apple pulp manually through the holes in the mill. My neighbor Ruth has a relatively high-tech machine with a crank that does most of the work. Either type of mill is definitely worth purchasing.
Luckily, I didn’t have to purchase mine as it belonged to my grandmother. It looks old — well, it is old — but it works.
My applesauce is named after Abigail Baker, who lived around the corner from my home in Hawley in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Mrs. Baker is famous (in our corner of the world, at any rate) for creating the winning pudding in a late 18th-century pudding contest that gave our area of town its name: Pudding Hollow.
When folk artist Judith Russell of Shelburne Falls and I began work on our “Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” Judy suggested that we include a recipe for Mrs. Baker’s applesauce. Somehow it slipped through the cracks then so I’m rectifying that omission here.
I have portrayed Mrs. Baker several times in the entertainment that accompanies our revived pudding contest, which takes place every five years. Hawley’s most celebrated cook is therefore seldom out of my thoughts.
Judy the artist is also in my thoughts a lot, especially at this golden time of year. She died in the autumn of 1994, but her colorful folk art and sunny spirit live on our hills, in my heart, and in my cookbook.
Ingredients:
6 generous cups quartered apples (preferably more than one variety)
1 cinnamon stick
1 pinch salt
1/4 cup apple cider plus additional cider as needed
maple syrup to taste, depending on the tartness of your apples (I used 2 tablespoons for my most recent batch, which was relatively sweet)
Instructions:
Wash the apples and quarter them. Remove any bad spots, but don’t worry about peeling them if you have a food mill.
Place the apple pieces, the cinnamon stick, the salt, and the cider in a 4-quart pot. Bring the mixture to a simmer over low heat, covered, and simmer it until the apples soften, checking frequently to see whether you need to add more cider to keep the sauce from burning. Stir when you check!
The cooking time will depend on the type and age of your apples and how many of them you are using. A 6-cup batch may take as little as 20 minutes, but a larger, firmer batch can take up to an hour.
Let the apples cool for a few minutes; then run them through a food mill. Discard the pulp and seeds (excellent pig food or compost!), and place the sauce in a saucepan. Add maple syrup to taste, and heat until the syrup dissolves, stirring to keep the thick liquid from burning.
If you want to can your sauce, reheat it to the boiling point, ladle it into sterilized jars, and process pint jars in a boiling-water bath for 20 minutes. Otherwise, refrigerate or freeze the applesauce.
The yield will depend on your apples. Six generous cups of apple pieces provide about 1 pint of sauce. Feel free to multiply this recipe if your apple harvest is copious. Just use a bigger pot, and be prepared to wait longer for the sauce to cook.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy,” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.