Home-made apple sauce

We're still getting excited about apples – there's a huge supply of fresh, organic, local apples now. When I was a kid, we had a big apple tree and my parents would make apple sauce that we had in the freezer almost all year round.

I got an amazing tip about adding ginger to the apple sauce and that was it: I had to try to make my own! Hopefully we will have apple sauce all through winter.

Applesauce

2,5 kg organic apples (or 11 big apples, or 3 litres chopped wedges)
200-300ml water
200ml Fair Trade raw cane sugar
Ginger, about the size of a golf ball, thinly sliced

Fill a big pot that will fit at least 5 litres halfway with water and a dash of lemon juice – so the apples won't turn brown. Wash the apples, remove the cores with a core remover, peel them, slice them into wedges and make sure the bad bits are cut off. Pop them in the water as you go along.

When you're done with all the apples, pour away most of the soaking water leaving only 200-300 ml in the pot. Add the finely sliced ginger with the apples. Bring the water to a boil on a high temperature. When it starts to boil, lower the temperature quickly. Stir to make sure the apples don't get burned. In only a few minutes the apples are soft and you can take the pot off the stove.

Pureé the apples with a stick blender – the ginger blends in better than by just mashing by hand. Add sugar and taste – the sufficient sugar amount varies with different apple varieties.

Put the pot back on the stove and let the apple sauce gently boil down for about 15 more minutes. If you hadn't already, then use this time to prep your containers.

Spoon the apple sauce it in clean, warm glass containers that you seal immediately to create a vacuum that will help preserve the sauce.



Our old flatmates came to visit just when the sauce had cooled enough and we made them an oven pancake with applesauce –my alltime favourite!