Instant Pot Apple Butter

By Kath Dedon

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We had a big crop of Akane apples this year. I decided to use some of them to make Ashley Singh Thomas’ recipe for Instant Pot Apple Butter. I found the recipe on her blog, My Heart Beets. I had had my eye on her recipe for a while. When Carrie told me she made it with some of the apples we gave her and how fabulous it is, I had to make it!

I love the fact that Ashley leaves the peels on. That really simplifies the prep work. I treated myself to a Cuisipro Apple Corer which worked great. I had 4½ pounds of apples prepped in under 30 minutes.

Ashley said she used 5½ pounds of apples in her 6-quart Instant Pot, but mine was looking pretty full with just 4½ pounds so that’s what I used. I did not reduce the other ingredients.

I put the finished apple butter in half-pint jars. I have one jar in the refrigerator to eat now and the others are in the freezer. I understand that apple butter freezes really well. We can look forward to enjoying Instant Pot Apple Butter over the next few months.

If you have an abundance of apples and an Instant Pot, I highly recommend this recipe!

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A couple of Akane apples from our tree and Instant Pot Apple Butter

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Instant Pot Apple Butter

(Adapted from Ashley Singh Thomas’ recipe on My Heart Beets)

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(print the recipe)

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The final quantity will depend on how much you cook it down in the last step. I ended up with a little over 5 cups of apple butter.

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You may wonder why this recipe only uses ¼ cup of water when Instant Pot recommends at least 1 cup of liquid. Amy + Jacky, in the comments on their version of Instant Pot Apple Butter, say that the apples release a lot of juice as they’re heated, so ¼ cup of water is enough. Indeed, it worked fine for me.

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4½ pounds of apples

¼ cup water

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of ground cloves

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg, optional (I didn’t use it.)

Sugar, optional (I used 1 tablespoon of coconut sugar, but I think it would have been great without any sweetener.)

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1. Wash, core, and quarter the apples.
2. Put the apples in the Instant Pot and add ¼ cup water.

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3. Put the lid on the pot, and turn the pressure regulator to Sealing. Use Manual, High Pressure and select 20 minutes of cooking time.

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4. When the time is up let the pressure release naturally.

5. Use a high speed blender or an immersion blender to puree the apples. (If using a blender, put the apple puree back in the Instant Pot.)

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Cooked apples, just before I blended them

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6. Stir the spices and sugar into the apple puree.

7. Press Sauté and set it to Low. Cook for 30 minutes, without the lid on, stirring occasionally.

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Simmering on Low, without the lid

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8. When the 30 minutes are up the Instant Pot will turn off. You’ll probably want to cook it down a bit more, so Press Sauté to cook for another 30 minutes.

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Tips:

• The apple butter will sputter when it’s cooking down. I used a splatter screen to keep it from splattering all over.
• If you want to freeze the apple butter in jars, be sure to leave about ½ inch of space to allow for expansion.

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