Slow Cooker Apple Butter | Family Guide to Visiting Marietta, Ohio

Local apples taste best in this slow cooker apple butter recipe. Use your kitchen appliances to do the work for you! This recipe can be canned for shelf stability & food gifts.

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Disclosure: I spent 3 days in Marietta, Ohio on an agritourism press trip. I was put up, fed, and shown the sights courtesy of the Marietta CVB. In exchange, I have written this post--and two others, since I'm so charmed by this town and I think ya'll should visit.


One aspect of traveling that I enjoy is the opportunity to learn something new--both about myself and the places I visit. This doesn't apply just to adults--kids can grow and thrive in new environments as well. On my recent Agritourism Adventure in Marietta, Ohio we visited many places that will delight the whole family, and I'll share them today in my Family Guide to Marietta, Ohio. If you'd like to visit Marietta with a group of girlfriends, please check out my Girlfriends' Guide to Marietta, Ohio. If you'd like to steal away for a couples weekend, stay tuned for my Couple's Guide to Marietta.

Where should a family stay in Marietta, Ohio? To answer that question I reached out to Shannon at the Marietta CVB. She suggested the following hotels that would provide kids with swimming and other opportunities to blow off steam--do you have points you can use at Quality Inn, Best Western Plus, Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn, Comfort Suites, or our family's favorite, Holiday Inn Express?

Where should a family eat in Marietta, Ohio? In addition to the wholesome and locally sourced breakfasts at Busy Bee Restaurant--where parents can get a cup of young entrepreneur Ashton's Broaster's Coffee--Shannon suggests lunch at the Third Street Deli and dinner at The Original Pizza Place.

What should a family do in Marietta, Ohio? During the Fall, I'd suggest a visit to Sweetapple Farm. The kids will have fun riding a wagon out to visit cows, building a scarecrow, or navigating the corn maze. They'll learn something, too. During the week, Sweetapple Farm is popular with school groups and senior groups--yep, that wagon ride is accessible. Mona Barrett, the owner, weaves agricultural education into the entertainment activities throughout the property.

Marietta has plenty of family friendly festivals. Shannon recommends the Sweet Corn Festival, the Marietta Riverfront Roar, the River Trails and Ales Festival, and the Ohio River Sternwheel Festival as particularly good for families. You can find more information about the festivals in Marietta, Ohio here.

I always like to put my kids to work, so a stop at Hidden Hills Orchard fits nicely with a family visit to Marietta, Ohio. Owners Tom and Cathy manage this farm with an eye to the future--from integrated pest management (Tom's showing the pheromone sticks to trick bugs instead of using sprays in the above photo) to a wildflower meadow (to attract pollinators). Your family is sure to enjoy the visit as much as the fruit!

I am a sucker for bringing food home from my travels. No matter how far I travel, I'll be bringing something back. Often it's honey or jam (the jars of Montana huckleberry preserves and Michigan cherry jam are testament to that) but if circumstances permit, it's more perishable goods like cheese and applewood smoked bacon from Nueske's in Wisconsin. My trip to Marietta was no different! I bought a bag of Hidden Hills apples while visiting Sweetapple Farm. What I failed to take into account was the continuing presence of apples from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. We get an apple share add on, which means throughout the Fall I'm bringing home a bag of locally grown apples along with all the fresh vegetables. Usually my family snacks on apples and the crisper inventory is easily managed, but sometimes there's a backlog. I made this Slow Cooker Apple Butter to use up an abundance of apples and make some room in the fridge.
The inspiration for this recipe came from Marisa's Spiced Apple Butter recipe and several apple butter recipes at Allrecipes.com.

Notes: do use a mix of apple varieties. Diversity is a Good Thing in most situations, and apple butter is no exception. Your result will have a more complex and nuanced flavor if you choose multiple types of apples. I used Empire, RubyJon, Golden Delicious, and McIntosh this time.

Don't let the long cooking time scare you off! It's mostly hands off. I started by cooking the apples overnight--coring and filling the slow cooker with chopped apples after I'd cleaned up from dinner. In the morning, I added still more apples since there was room. After they'd softened, I cooled and blended the mixture. Eight straight hours of cooking, and I was asleep for most of it.

After that, it was a matter of personal preference and taste. I cooked down the apple butter in snatches. After I'd get home from work I'd pull out the bowl of apple puree, plop it into the slow cooker, set the timer for 2 hours, then go about my evening. When the timer beeped, I stirred the mixture and reset the timer for another 2 hours until bedtime when I tucked the puree back into the fridge. I repeated this until I was happy with the consistency of the apple butter. When I had a block of time, I spiced and canned the apple butter.

I'm a visual learner. Please watch this video of the cooking/canning process for more information!

Slow Cooker Apple Butter
By Kirsten Madaus

Local apples taste best in this slow cooker apple butter recipe. Use your kitchen appliances to do the work for you! This recipe can be canned for shelf stability & food gifts.

Prep time: 00:05
Cook time: 12:15
Total time: 12:20

Yield: a little more than 4 pints, which I canned in ½ pint containers

Ingredients:

¼ cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup water
cored & chopped apples (enough to fill the pot, about 8-10 pounds, see Note)
½ to 1 cup brown sugar
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
about ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 lemon, zested and juiced

Instructions:

Add liquids to the bottom of a 6 quart slow cooker.

Fill with apples. Cover and cook for 6 hours on Low. Stir. Add 3-5 more apples. Cook 2 more hours on Low.

Cool apples. Puree until no pieces of peel are visible (I used my Vitamix).

Return to slow cooker, set the lid ajar, and cook on Low for 2 hours. Stir. Repeat until it's as thick as you like. You'll be stirring more often as you get close to the end.

Stir in sugar, spices, and lemon juice. Cook for 15 minutes. Taste and add additional sugar if you like.

At this point, the apple butter can keep in the fridge for 2 weeks.

If you'd like to make it shelf stable, process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes (see video for details).

For more recipes using apples, please see my Apple Recipes Collection (appetizers, entrees, breakfast thru dessert there's a wide selection). It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

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