Every year we all look forward to going apple picking at a local orchard.  This fall we tried Terison’s Orchard in Cumberland, Maine.  Apparently they use pesticide sprays minimally, and that sounded good to us!  

We picked a whole bushel of Macintosh and Cortland apples.  That’s a LOT of apples, but we had plans in store for them.  

Aside simply eating them, applesauce was top on the list of uses for our harvest.  This year I decided to spice things up a little bit and try making a roasted applesauce.  As always, I was ably assisted by my sous chefs.  

First we washed then quartered and cored a bunch of apples.  We ended up with with 7 pounds of prepared fruit.  

Next we made mixture of maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.  This yummy concoction was tossed with the apples.

The apples were then placed on baking pans and roasted in the oven (at 400 degrees) for about 40 minutes.  The smell was heavenly.  

At this point, I could have processed the apples in a food mill to separate the skin from the apples.  Because I’m a lazy cook and I liked the idea of keeping the skins, our apples went directly from the roasting pan to the cooking pot (being careful to save all the juices and syrup created in the oven).  I just took the immersion blender and whirred up the apples skin and all.  The resulting sauce was amazingly think and a gorgeous color.  I added apple cider to thin it to our desired consistency (4 cups or so).  The final addition was 1/2 cup of lemon juice. I decided to can mine in mason jars, but you certainly could freeze it as well.

Look at that color!

Paul thinks the applesauce is too thick.  I suspect the inclusion of the skins has a lot to do with this.  Maybe next time I’ll try removing the skin, but I kind of like the extra thickness and texture the skins provide, so I’m not sure.

This applesauce is lovely mixed with yogurt.

Click here for the recipe for Roasted Applesauce.