Making Apple Butter

I have wanted to make apple butter in my crockpot for the last month or so.  I found a great recipe HERE, that I wanted to try.  Yesterday, my local SaveMart had small Gala apples for $.47 a pound.  So, I picked some up for apple butter!  Now, this is an all-day cooking thing, so you really need to start it in the morning.  Currently, the kids stay home Thursday mornings with my husband while I go to work.  So, I got the girls to take charge of making the apple butter.  They pulled up their step stools, I pulled out our handy dandy apple peeler/slicer/corer, and off they went!  Together they peeled, sliced, and cored about 6 pounds of apples!  They are amazing, and had so much fun doing it, too.  This is super tasty, and it is awesome on a toasted slice of bread (in fact, I'm going to make up a batch of bread dough tonight so that we can have fresh bread with apple butter in the morning!).  Here is how to do it:

Peel, core, and slice about 6 pounds of apples (If you don't have an apple corer, you can just peel, slice out the inside, and chop the apples in to quarters)

Place the apples in your crockpot with about 2 TBS vanilla extract.  Cook on LOW for about 6-8 hours, or until apples are tender (my crockpot cooks hot, so it was about 5 hours on low for mine).  Stir occasionally.  Once apples are very tender, mash it with a potato masher.  Then, add 1 1/2 cups raw sugar (or brown sugar), 1 tsp ground cloves (we had whole cloves, so we ground them in a coffee grinder), and 3-4 tsp cinnamon.  Stir it all up.  Cover and cook another 5-6 hours on low, stirring occasionally.  Let it cool, and place it in airtight containers.  Keep in the refrigerator.  Mmmmm.  Enjoy!