Cinnamon Butter and Applesauce

For the past few minutes, I’ve been pondering over how to start this post. All attempts were defeated as I stared at the words  – cinnamon, butter and applesauce. Biting into three of my favourite things spread rather generously on a piece of toasted bread – I’m not thinking clearly. If you were next to me right now, all you’d hear would be squeals of joy.

When you take a tour of food blogs around this time of the year, you will notice the space bursting with all things fall – pumpkins, persimmons, apples – but nothing yet on Purple Foodie (gasp!). I know I’m a little late in coming up with a recipe for the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’*, and I clearly got the hint weeks ago when I noticed frantic activity on the recipe for apple chips. But the truth is, there is no fall here in Bombay. No rustling leaves in crimson and gold, no woolen scarves and jackets, none of that. And to top that, we have apples available all year round which saps the charm out of apples being seasonal fruits. But you know what? Making the cinnamon butter and homemade applesauce will make you happy, regardless of how the weather around you is.

The first time I had applesauce was a little over a year ago at a farmers’ market stand in NYC. The pink hued applesauce was calling my name from afar. I traipsed over, and bought a tub of the raspberry applesauce and a loaf of raisin and fennel bread.  And that was my breakfast every day for the rest of my trip. Just to relive that moment, I added a little raspberry puree to this homemade applesauce, and I am only too happy to report that this sauce has surpassed the one from the farmers’ market. I’m going to attribute the success to Granny Smith apples – they are magical when cooked.

Some tips on making homemade applesauce:

• Use apples that are meant for cooking like Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji or Mcintosh.
• Add some lemon zest to the sauce while cooking to intensify the flavour.
• If you’re using a cinnamon stick, don’t discard it when bottling. The cinnamon will continue to add flavour to the applesauce.
• If you’d like a chunky applesauce, use a potato masher, and if you’d like a smooth texture, you could whizz it together with a hand blender or pass it through a food mill.
• I used raspberries for that pink blush to the sauce, but you could use cranberries or strawberries too. If you’d like increased tartness, you could add more of the berries.
• I have made homemade applesauce with two methods: first by caramelising the sugar with the apples and butter and the other by dumping all the ingredients into the pan at the same time. This didn’t make much of a difference, but I’m partial to the method of caramelising the apples first.
• If you’d like to make a super quick version of the homemade applesauce, you could throw all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl along with a little apple juice, cover it leaving the slightest and microwave it on high for 10 minutes. I’m not a proponent of microwave cooking, but this saves you a lot of trouble of toiling over the stovetop.

Go ahead, and make this. Make sure you dollop the toast with blobs of the cinnamon butter. And when your house health police isn’t looking, add another. You can blame me if you’re caught, I’ll take one for the team.

* To Autumn – John Keats.

Cinnamon Butter

Ingredients:
100g butter, at room temperature
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons castor sugar

Method: Mix all the ingredients until combined and then fill it in a small jar. I like to refrigerate it for a little while until its firm, but still malleable and then roll it in parchment. I then cut small discs and plop over some hot toast.

Applesauce
Approximate yield: 500g / 1 lb.

Ingredients:
5 apples, peeled, cored and diced
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tbsp butter
4 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp vanilla bean sugar

Optional: A few frozen raspberries/raspberry puree

Equipment: Potato masher

Method:

1. Heat a saucepan, and add the butter to it. Stir in the sugar and let it cook with the butter until it is almost dissolved. Add the apples, and stir to coat.
2. Cook the apples for 10-12 minutes, stirring often until the apples have softened and yield to pressure when squeezed between fingers.
3. Stir in the cinnamon until evenly distributed.
4. With a potato mashed, squish the cooked apples until it reached the texture you desire.
5. If you’re adding the berries, now is the time. Mash them together until uniformly blended.
6. Turn of the heat and lick off the masher while no one’s looking.