Apple sauce, apple butter and how to store an autumn pick
Apples are the exception to everything else on this site. Picked at the right moment and stored properly, they will keep for months, which means an autumn orchard trip can still be feeding you in winter.
Storing them, which is most of the value
Sort ruthlessly. One bruised apple in a box will take the box with it. Anything marked, split or soft goes in the cooking pile, not the storage pile.
Do not wash them. The natural bloom is a barrier. Wash at the point of eating.
Wrap or separate. Individually wrapped in newspaper, or in a single layer not touching, in a shallow box or tray.
Cold, dark and slightly humid. A garage, a cellar, a shaded shed. Not the kitchen, and not beside potatoes or onions, whose smell they take on.
Check monthly. Remove anything going over. Late-season varieties keep far better than early ones, so if you are picking to store, ask the orchard which block is the keeper.
Plain apple sauce
The simplest way to deal with quantity, and it freezes.
Ingredients: 2kg apples, 100ml water, sugar to taste, a strip of lemon peel.
Method: Peel, core and roughly chop. Put in a heavy pan with the water and lemon peel, cover, and cook over low heat for 20 to 30 minutes until collapsing, stirring now and then. Beat smooth with a spoon, or leave it rough. Sweeten at the end, not the start, because the fruit varies enormously. Freeze in portions or bottle hot in sterilised jars and water-bath for 20 minutes.
Slow apple butter
Not butter at all: apple cooked down until it is dark, thick and concentrated. It takes hours and almost no attention.
Ingredients: 3kg apples, 400g sugar, juice of one lemon, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, a scrape of nutmeg.
Method: Cook the apples down to sauce as above, then pass through a sieve or blend smooth. Return to a wide pan with the sugar, lemon and spices. Cook on the lowest heat for two to four hours, stirring every twenty minutes, until it is deep brown and thick enough that a spoon drawn across the base leaves a clear track.
Jar hot and seal. It is worth doing the day you have the oven on for something else, and a windfall or a bruised bucket is exactly the right raw material.
Updated 10 September 2026