Too Good For The Apple Butter (updated)

I have always wanted to make apple butter but it scared the heck out of me. After seeing it on another blog I realized the crockpot was the trick. Yay! A customer came by the office and gave us these apples. They are really wonderful. I talked to the customer and and she told me that they are not from Arlington but are actually from West Virginia. My mistake...

I got started peeling and chopping while listening to a radio program. I peeled the first apple and the smell was so wonderful I could not help taking a bite. It was at that moment that I realize it would be a terrible waste to use these super tasty apples for apple butter. So these babies went in a bowl on the table and try to refrain from chomping them all in one day.

Ok... let' start all over with these .69 cent a pound apples from the grocery store. They are not organic, I know that is not good. I really figured it would be a total flop the first try so I went with the cheap ones.

Peel, peel, peel, chop chop, chopity,chop, chop chop, measure and then measure again...Time for the crock pot. Six hours on low with the the lid on. G' night apples, night crock pot. I wake up to the best smell ever. At 5am I jumped up and ran to the crock pot just like a kid on Christmas morning. I was too groggy to take any pictures but the apples had turned a light brown and were very soft.

Next was the crock pot's field trip to the office to finish cooking.

After Four hours of cooking with the lid off and stirring often. I pushed the apples through a strainer to remove seeds or skin that might have been left behind. Added the cinnamon, cloves and Maple syrup and back it went in the crock pot for 2 more hours.
I then scooped the apple butter into 8 ounce jars that had been boiling in a pan for about 5 minutes. Placed the lids and rings on the jars and inverted them onto a clean towel to seal everything. This is not an official method of canning so the jars had to go in the fridge after they had cooled completely.
I got the main recipe from the The Farmers Wife and I did a little changing to suit my taste buds.
CROCK POT APPLE BUTTER
16 cups peeled and cubed apples
1/2 cup B grade maple syrup (you can get this at the health food store)
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon

Of course I took the nice customers that gave us the tasty apples a jar of the apple butter.