Homemade Apple Sauce Recipe

Homemade Apple Sauce

What could possibly beat homemade apple sauce? While you indulge in frying – and eating – latkas and their trademark topping, it’s a perfect time to tell you that the store-bought apple sauce doesn’t hold a candle to its homemade counterpart. Plus it’s a snap to make. So good I even serve it at parties! Delicious not just as a topping for latkas, but as a treat in its own right. It’s so satisfying to see the humble sauce upstage other fabulous desserts on display. You go, apple sauce girl!

This subject will always remind me of the time, a few weeks after my son Maimon and Ruthie got married, and I served an apple pie. Ruthie politely turned it down, saying she can’t get anywhere near cooked fruit. My son then told her (she was all of twenty and almost as beautiful as she is now!): “You’ll see when you are in the nursing home: you are going to love apple sauce!” She has many long happy healthy years to go before then, and I hate to report apple sauce and other cooked fruit hasn’t grown on her…..

Don’t Wait for Chanukkah to Make Apple Sauce!

It’s delicious, not only with latkas, but by itself, or with yogurt. You might also want to make a sauce out of any fruit you might have on hand, alone or in combination, and proceed just as above: I love pears, plums, peaches, apricots.

But suppose for a moment you don’t suffer from Ruthie’s inexplicable phobia. Here’s what I do:  a cut a dozen sweet red apples such as gala or McIntosh into quarters, skin and all.
I place them in a wide bottom pot or skillet, skin, pits and all: not only are you saving on peeling time, but the sling adds a wonderful deep red color, and the pits add a lot of pectin and impart that thick chunky texture.
Add natural apple cider to just cover the apples. No added sugar, as the fruit and the cider are more than enough to ensure a pleasantly and pepper toy balanced sweet/tart sauce
Add cinnamon and vanilla extract to taste, and bring to a boil.
Reduce the flame to medium and cook covered about 15 minutes, until the fruit is tender bu not beyond that point.
Strain in a large-hole colander (so it’s chunky), with a bowl underneath, and press hard on the solids. You will be left with only the skins and the pits: discard; they have both made their generous contribution to the cause.

How About Pear Sauce?

That will be fantastic too! Proceed exactly as above, using pears, unfiltered pear cider, cinnamon or cardamom, and ginger.