and we're back for another episode of set a spell back again and we're going golly we just went there so Megan is with us say hello Megan hello Megan is preoccupied searching for a top 10 list to stop both Crystal and I so this has become a competitive episode already and Crystal is literally giving me the stare down I wish you could see this I've got my game face on but before we get competitive take the game face off go into 4-H club leader here I saw you turn it on earlier so we're talking about apples and specifically apple butter today apple butter on a biscuit of which my sisters here did a video without inviting me they swear they invited me but I am absolutely pulling it to you you were telling one number one he's telling us number two it was delicious there's so many pop culture references happening in the first one minute of this I have a number three number three we're going to post said video for all to enjoy we are oh yeah absolutely we have a link in the description but doesn't not in it no he was invited and he turned us down because he had a different kind of opportunity however I will say that I've been harping on this for years that to do a proper canning demonstration and or class one must make biscuits if you're doing jam or apple butter and you all are the first I've ever seen post proof I'm not saying other people have not done it you have a point I'm just saying you're the first people no picture no proof you're the first people that I've ever seen do that so kudos to my sisters they were really good biscuits you could have approved biscuits are good I've never bet a biscuit I don't like I have in the 4-H banking podcast oh yeah yeah those don't count those don't count so we're talking all about apples today so apple butter so first we have to really come to this point you cannot have watered down apple butter absolutely not so no knock on buying apple butter from the store because it's what most folks do but it's a watered down and listen it is ridiculously easy oh yeah and my buddy Chuck McFadden who runs Apple Valley Orchards in Cleveland he is hardcore don't you dare buy and he doesn't even make the apple butter they bring it in and he'll tell you that it's not a secret or anything but you buy from the store and you might as well just drink it because it's watered down so much so we hope to help you release your gift of apple butter after this podcast yes I think the number one thing about making apple butter is picking the right kind of apple for your apple butter I agree we used what kind of apples we used Jonathan Apples to our local apple orchard I guess every county probably went to our local apple orchard and I said give him a shout out it's the Ryle Apple House in Cumberland County and I said hey what is the apple butter apple and he said I got you Jonathan Apples Jonathan Apples he said listen people have been buying them and they are the ones he's like these are the ones trust me and I mean they make a pretty good product so Jonathan Apples wine tap apples I want to give a shout out to Dayton Tennessee the wooden apple barn up there just got some staining wine tap apples from there that are delicious they're my mom's favorite my mother-in-law brought back some gummy worms from there I don't know that they make them but they sell them apple gummy worms they have a delicious apple cider slushies and apple dumpling if you don't have an apple cider slushy then do you have an apple I have some apple cider in the refrigerator we can make slushies later I mean I'm there for it Golden Delicious McIntosh or other ones you know I was kind of surprised at the Golden Delicious I'm not going to lie about making good apple butter but that's according to the National Center for Home Food Preservation so yeah shout out to them you know those where you need your research based safe tested recipes for canning so the ingredients that you need to make your apple butter are super simple apples it's quite a few apples I mean it's 8 pounds 8 pounds of apples it's white sugar and brown sugar apple cider not hearing anything I don't like so far apple cider vinegar full disclosure I've never made apple butter two cups of vinegar two cups of apple cider is it cider vinegar or is it regular vinegar we just use regular vinegar because you've got apple cider cinnamon and cloves cinnamon and cloves and I'll be really honest with you I don't love cloves so I'm going to a little lighter on the cloves but the thing that I think is the most amazing about this recipe is the fact that you don't have to peel the apples don't peel the apples y'all you just use your little apple cutter you don't have to apple wedge cutter oh yeah you press down and it throws it all in the wedges and it throws it in the core out oh yeah that's it and the peel of the apple cooks down but it gives you just a little bit of texture every now and then and I like that now we use the Jonathan apples I'm guessing I could be wrong about this but this is just me going out on a limb here that if you use this spoiler alert non-research based information totally non-research based information I can't say this from anything that I've actually done but wine type apples have a tougher skin and so I'm thinking that they would not break down as much as the Jonathan apples I also want to add to that that we use an immersion blender to kind of blend ours up so I think that probably helped break down the skin more so it might be like if you just use a potato masher so you all you all did this you made a video it's well done I wasn't there so it's well done I just want to keep pointing that out so how long are we looking at start to finish on making our own apple butter if we're doing one batch I guess so we got distracted at certain points minus the sibling distractions and it really did not take them long to cook down no you cook them in the cider in the vinegar until they're soft and then you cook them with the sugar and cinnamon and it did not take that second cook did not take long and then you put them in your sterilized jars and we were doing it up on the mountain now hold on pause we're in now in a COVID world so when she says sterilized jars she's not talking about hand sanitizers she's talking about being washed and clean and most of the time we throw them in some boiling water I think Dr. Bernie said that's not technically necessary but making sure they're washed and clean it is not necessary so I was about to say we were up on the mountain so we had a higher elevation so we had to process hours for 10 minutes so when you're processing for 10 minutes or more you don't have to boil your jars but if we were down in the valley your process time for half pounds is just 5 minutes so you would need to sterilize your jars by boiling them so overall realistically I mean for the entire process it really didn't even take that long now if you have a good friend there and you're making biscuits how long was the process? oh well all day I mean I had other stuff to do I made biscuits while the butter was processing you know what another thing that we don't have a good set of time is when you're videoing something it takes forever to get enough steps so this brings a good question up apple butter's done what are the best applications of apple butter? obviously biscuit we know that right that's top five right I like it in oatmeal really?
I've not heard of that I've seen where people eat on like pancakes I've seen that my mama says one of the best ways is just to make a yellow cake oh I thought you were going to say alligators I'm not doing a waterboy reference if you make a plain yellow cake you know if you fit around go ahead and half that thing put your apple butter in the middle apple butter on top let it soak in or if you've got a cheap pancake just poke you some holes there let that apple butter seep down into it it's kind of a cheap way of making an apple stack cake because you know they'll take forever I saw the other day and I haven't tried it yet but it's on my too trialiest a recipe with some cinnamon cream cheese icing I bet do you know apple dustin no I've never had one judged I mean I have you today for lunch some chicken and dumplings cornbread and some strawberry bars I say that this is not going to be a long episode I smell cornbread I say I have it but it's in the kitchen made in lard and butter I saw it there was no lard are you sure I'm positive there's Crisco but that's not lard it's yuppie lard I mean it's the same there's a difference in Crisco and lard no Penny Penny has been making this lunch so we can't hang for it that's amazing so I know we're supposed to what I want you guys to do is I want you to see if you can guess the top 10 apple sales in the United States like the apple varieties by sales just then give a guess and then I'll give a guess whoever gets the highest the most in the top what's your first guess I'm going to go with Honeycrisp my first guess is Red Delicious oh you want me to tell you who was higher in the list so we've got Honeycrisp coming in at number 5 so while we're on I'm taking notes while we're on the example of Honeycrisp I can tell you that Honeycrisp are very good for eating fresh yes they are my chart is not in order Honeycrisp are my favorite to eat for apple sauce it's good but it can make your apple sauce a little watery sometimes it is best it says best for apple juice not recommended for apple butter so it's a sweet crisp apple and storage is good but not great so Red Delicious is coming in at number 2 oh snap so Red Delicious is best for apple sauce sometimes Red Delicious can kind of when you cook it it can kind of disappear go away so it's not the best for that oh yeah yeah Golden Delicious for me I never know how to say it is it Gala is it Gala is it I say Gala what was your guess brother Golden Delicious okay we have Golden Delicious coming in at number 6 you were doing the process right you just did the $1 I know Golden Delicious is very good for apple sauce can use it for eating fresh cooking apple juice apple butter like we said we were surprised about very sweet you should refrigerate your Golden Delicious apples never knew that interesting your Gala apples are coming in at no number 1 you are terrible at this game I pretty well saw Gala apples are very good for eating fresh also good for cooking they're overrated because people see them first people choose them I think they're one of the least expensive they do have very sweet it says flavor much refrigerate but they only keep for a few weeks they're much better cold the juice is well better yes Granny Smith for $3 you got me on this one I am totally blanking on Macintosh are you kidding me we have Macintosh we got Macintosh at number 7 let's look this up here Macintosh come in in September they are best for eating fresh apple juice and apple butter not really recommended for baking that much and you know I like to call Granny Smith I like to call Granny Smith a workhorse apple it is I love it Granny Smith is all around I love baking with Granny Smith it can be very sour but the thing about if you're making those you know those horrible for you pioneer woman apple dumplings that are so good like the crescent rolls and you use soda I said soda but it felt weird I got it soda you're in southeast Tennessee it's cocoa I know but I didn't know can I say the name of it we just said it because if you're using some sweet that tart kind of offsets the sweet and it's good so I mean I know you're wondering where Granny Smith fell on the chart Granny Smith is coming in at number 4 look at you we're going in the right direction so let's just go one more round for those of you keeping count well it depends on if we're tired 2 to 1 so I'm going to go with Fuji I was totally going to go with Fuji now I'm blank I don't know what to do I would give you my second one but it would probably be higher than Fuji so I will not give you that was going to be my choice and I'm just drawing a blank on apple varieties because you know there's like 150 apples say Arkansas Black I'm going to take another thought to you people are like why are you giving me a rotten apple I am going to go with Jonah Gold Jonah Gold is it in a billion whale Jonah Gold is not on the list I will say that one that was my guess after Fuji though you stole mine Fuji is very good for eating it says it is the best for applesauce good for all the other applications too excellent all purpose apple it's a great food it stores well in your garage or basement that's what it says here that's weird that made me think of my papaw barber keep in the cellar you want an apple run out to the garage and get one probably so that's a whole other episode to talk about food stores in the past is Fuji on the list is what we're worried about Fuji came in at number 3 so we've got to have a tiebreaker because we're tied at 2 so the tiebreaker is going to be a rapid fire apple variety for y'all to land one on the list the first one that can land one on the list I don't have a lot of pink lady you have a rebuttal I'm going to go with Arkansas Black Arkansas Black is not on the list but pink lady comes in at number 8 sister you are the winner she's garbage I love being the winner hey I had apple variety that's something like jazz I've never seen before or tango it was tango and it was really good the tango one was really good and at home and like we can apple house they have muttsu muttsu I'm not facing them but you would probably like them if you really like Granny Smith's but I think they're a little more dark too I like the Johnny Girls too or as you say the Johnny and the Belly of the Roll Girls I had speech therapy for five years of my life oh don't pull that card after we competed come on so I I'll see you next time I'll see you next time mispronounce things often. Thanks for making fun of me. Well, on that note, you've probably heard more apple varieties than you've ever seen in your life. And you know, that's just getting started.
So there's literally like over a hundred apples. Also, I just want to point out before we end this episode, Megan said rapid fire, Crystal said pink lady and I stared like an idiot at the wall. I don't know. I mean, it was very unrapid fire.
So on that note, you now know how to make apple butter. You know that Crystal and Megan did not invite me to make apple butter and Crystal won the competition and there's a video. And there's a video. Go to the description, find the link, go check it out and see all the good work that my sister did without me because I didn't invite me and come back to the film.
Next week.