I enjoy making applesauce (or pearsauce) and countless other ‘sauces’ made from fruit.
But it can take a long time. My 2009 post on making applesauce turned 75 pounds of apples into sauce in about 6 hours (it also used a crazy amount of sugar so stay tuned on Thursday for a lower sugar version). I also admitted in 2010 to peeling more than 160 pints of peaches with a pairing knife before I learned how to peel a peach.
I’m not scared of hard work, even when it’s not the smartest option. But I also like a good shortcut on days that I’m not really excited about the work.
Making appleasauce often means you have to:
- Peel the apples.
- Core and stem the Apples.
- Cut them into smaller pieces.
- Cook them for hours until they soften (which is difficult in a big pot as the apples near the top don’t get heat for hours)
- Mash the apples.
YOU DON’T NEED TO DO ANY OF THE ABOVE STEPS!
I recently made applesauce in an entirely different way that reduced the labor, cooking time and work dramatically. Of, course there is fine print; a high-speed blender is required (though I bet you could adapt the process and see what happens).
Here was the steps I took (this worked with apples and pears):
- Remove the stem.
- Cut the apple in 4.
- Don’t worry about coring it or removing seeds (though I knocked the easy ones out of the apple).
- Pour 0.5 cups of water into the high speed blender.
- Fill blender will apple chunks.
- Puree until smooth.
- Pour all but 1 cup of applesauce into a pot; go back to step 5 until done.
This process saves hours of cooking – 6 pounds of apples were on the stove (as sauce) within 10 minutes of starting and I was canning applesauce within an hour!
One lesson learned: when I tasted the pear, I realized there was some texture from the skins or seeds remaining. I put it back into the blender for a few minutes and the texture was exactly as I had hoped!