Growing up I loved to help my Mom make applesauce in the fall, but we never took the apples to the next cooking stage to make apple butter. I discovered the delicious joy of apple butter when I was grown, and it’s one of my favorite spreads for morning toast. To carry on the generations of cooking with love, I have the privilege of using the same iron kettle and food colander that my Mom used and which originally belonged to my Grandmother. My Apple Butter recipe has the perfect balance of sweetness and spices with the flavor of crisp fall apples in every spoonful; I think you will love it. You can use any tart cooking apple; I prefer to use Granny Smith apples. When preparing the apples just rinse them as you normally would before eating and cut them into quarters without peeling or coring them because much of the apple pectin and flavor is in the peels and core. After the first cooking stage the cooked apples are processed through a food colander which will remove all the peel, core, seeds and stems. I normally use light brown sugar, but I’ve sometimes made this recipe with granulated sugar and it is just as good, so feel free to use the sugar of your choice. For the apple cider I normally just purchase fresh pressed cider which is available in most grocery stores in the fall.