For Groups coming in the Fall...
It takes lots of helping hands to make apple butter. Our
ancestors in the
Black
Swamp
would gather as
families, neighbors, and friends and work together to make big
kettles of the reddish-brown spread. Younger children would help
pickup fallen apples to make cider. Older children would
probably climb high in the apple trees to pick the apples for
schnitzing. (To schnitz an apple means to slice it very thin so
it will cook up very quickly into thick bubbling apple butter.)
To make cider, the family
would either take their apples to the cider press in the
neighborhood or maybe they even had their own press. The press
grinds and squeezes the apples together until all the sweet
apple juice, called cider, runs from the wooden bed and is
funneled into the jugs. One bushel of apples usually yields
2½ – 3 gallons of cider.
On the days that apple butter
is being made at our Village, some volunteers from Colton and
Liberty Center, affectionately called the "Apple Butter
Gang", come to organize and head up the work crews. The men
get up very early, probably before our young school guests have
tumbled from their beds to start the outdoor fire where the
apple butter will be cooking. Each batch takes nearly 8 hours
from start to finish so it's important to get started early.
Then, 30 gallons of cider are
poured into the big copper kettles over the open fire. Those 30
gallons of cider boil and boil until only about half remains.
While the cider is boiling
down, usually apples are being schnitzed in the cellar or summer
kitchen. Many\people gather to get the job done. Some come with
their own apple peelers which takes the peel from each apple in
one long strip. After the apples are peeled the ladies and older
girls cut them in half, carefully wash them, and then schnitz
them for the kettles. Our Apple Butter Gang uses 30 – 35 gallons
of schnitzed apples for each kettle of apple butter. That's a
lot of work and takes a lot of apples. We figure it takes 15 – 20
bushels of apples to make one batch of apple butter.
Years ago, children often got
to help with the mechanical apple peeler. Then they were usually
assigned the job of carrying out the peelings to feed the
chickens or hogs if they weren't going to be saved to make
apple jelly. Another job was probably keeping plenty of wood
stacked nearby to keep the fire going all day.
The men, stirring continually
at the kettle, add 5 gallons of schnitzed apples at a time to
the boiling cider. Soon it begins to look thick and bubbly. When
all the apple pieces have disappeared, they add the next 5
gallons of schnitzed apples.
The apple butter needs to be stirred all the time so that the apples don't stick to the bottom and burn. Sometimes, just like their ancestors, children get to take a turn. The handles of the wooden stirring paddles are very long because the fire is so hot. Today, just like long ago, the apple butter splashes as it boils. Sometimes it boils right to the top of the kettle! When that happens, a chunk of butter slipped into the pot will keep it from boiling over.
The Colton/Liberty Center Apple Butter Gang ties corn husks to their stirring paddles to
help keep the apples moving and from sticking to the bottom and burning. After the last 5 gallons of schnitzed apples are in the copper kettle, the apple butter is cooked until it is so thick that when it's put on a plate the juice won't run from it.
When it's ready, 25 – 30 pounds of sugar are added. Again, the stirring is critical so it won't burn. When it's just the right thickness, the kettle is taken off the fire. The stirrers must keep stirring though because the kettle is so hot, the apple butter could still be burned.
We can our apple butter in glass jars because guests want to buy it. Our ancestors would have put their apple butter in crocks and used a plate for a lid. With that method, air getting to the apple butter caused it to get a thick scum on the top. Neither the scum nor a little mold forming on the apple butter caused any harm and our ancestors removed the layer of mold.
Apple Butter has been enjoyed many ways. Often it was spread on toast or on homemade biscuits or bread at mealtime. Some people put it on top of cottage cheese or buckwheat pancakes. Years ago children often took apple butter sandwiches to school in their lunch pails.
