Grandpa Kline's Poppycock {Not Your Average Caramel Corn}

Fall is here! This is my favorite time of year, and the past two nights have yielded temperatures in the mid 30’s. Considering that the first day of Fall was this past Sunday, the weather has changed right on the dot! Last Fall we had a bumper crop of apples in town…there were apples everywhere. Sadly, a frost the week after Easter prevented that for this year. Nonetheless, it seems that the orchards back East are booming with apples, so my friends, I hope you will take advantage of all the things you can do after you spend time picking apples.

The Apple Barn in Tennessee has the BEST apple butter. Surprisingly I was not able to find a true copycat recipe when I was making my apple butter. So, I researched a few recipes, checked out the ingredients on the Apple Barn jar of apple butter we had, and sort of tweaked a few things into this recipe.

This is time consuming, but having the opportunity to smell this cooking in the crock pot for an entire day is well worth it. Sadly, we are on our last jar. I need to find some apples, quickly! 

Enjoy!

-Rach

Crock Pot Apple Butter

Ingredients

• 6 quarts peeled and cooked apples (any kind, I used golden delicious that looked less than appetizing) **to clarify- I fill my 6 quart crock pot full of already cooked apples...I tried this recently with unsweetened applesauce as my starter, so that makes it even easier!!** As always, you can "half" the recipe and still get the same great results!
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

1. In a large crock pot, combine the apples and apple cider vinegar. Cook on HIGH for 4 hours then reduce to LOW for 8 hours.
2. Add the white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and pumpkin pie spice to your apples.
3. Cook on low for 4 more hours.

P.S. This recipe even made it into the handwritten collection, reserved only for the absolute best!