Apples, apples everywhere!

 Yes, friends, it's apple time!  I love cooking apples almost as much as I love cooking peaches.  Even though I'm slightly allergic to cinnamon, I love the smell of it with other spices.

  My favorite apple for apple butter is the Stayman Winesap, and here are a whole bunch of them.  They're tart and sweet and crispy, and really, really juicy.  I can peel, slice and core one bushel in one hour, thanks to my lovely peeler, corer, slicer thing-a-ma-jig that I forgot to take a photo of.
  I didn't forget the recipe, though.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section.  Be sure to wear long sleeves because this stuff splatters and sticks.  I have a blister on my index finger to prove it!

APPLE BUTTER

Yield - approximately 12-  12 oz. jars

10 lb. apples, peeled, cored and sliced  

5 lb. golden cane sugar

2.5 lb. commercial apple cider

5 oz. lemon juice

5 oz. Brandy

1 oz. vanilla extract

1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoons ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon sea salt

In a deep pot, bring all ingredients to a full, rolling boil, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and pour into a clean, dry container.  Cover the surface with parchment paper, allow to cool  and cover with a lid.  Refrigerate over night.  The next day, blend the ingredients as smoothly as possible.  Pour into a deep pot and bring to a full, rolling boil.  Cook on high to medium-high heat (beware of splattering), until mixture holds its shape on a spoon and is thick.  Blend again, if necessary and jar immediately

I had to stop for lunch, though!  Homemade bread, my peanut butter and mmmmmm!  Chocolate milk from Cruze Farm!  It was yummy!  And then I started working on recipes for the new cookbook.  The one thing I didn't have a recipe for was the apple sauce upside down cake.  I made the apple sauce first thing this morning, then sketched out a cake formula.  The monkey wrench in the works was that the caramel had to have espresso grounds in it.  Yep!  Coffee in my caramel!  

                         

Here's the cake:

I took a bite and all I could taste was the espresso!  I was worried about the coffee taste and the lack of spice in the cake, so I took pieces of it around to my co-workers to get more input.  Here's the funny thing:  the men couldn't taste the coffee and the women thought it was too much!  I still haven't gotten the input from my biggest bosses, one of whom asked for the coffee in the caramel.  I hope they like it!