If you are a fan of honey and apples together, you will love this honey apple butter recipe.
Made with lavender honey and hibiscus flowers in syrup, the flavor of this apple butter is intensely appley with lovely floral notes from the hibiscus and lavender.
Want to know the difference between applesauce and apple butter? I can help with that! And if you’re looking for a delicious use for your honey apple butter, I think you’ll really enjoy my caramel apple bread pudding recipe.
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Thank you to The Burrell Group for sending me the flowers and honey!
Shoutout to Wild Hibiscus Flower Company and Honey Ridge Farms for making such amazing products.
What Does This Apple Butter Taste Like?
Since The Burrell Group generously sent me Fun Things (thank you, Ronnie), I decided to make something delicious with what they sent.
What I came up with is a fairly unorthodox apple butter. One sweetened with honey and accented with hints of hibiscus and lavender.
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This butter is less sweet than some, and if you taste it at the beginning of cooking, you’ll think it’s sort of insipid.
Five hours of slow cooking over low to medium-low heat concentrates the sweetness and the apple flavor, and you will be so very happy with this apple butter recipe. I promise.
The delicate floral notes do tend to cook out over the long cooking time, so I added an extra dose of hibiscus at the very end of cooking. Since lavender can be overpowering and a bit soapy tasting if not used judiciously, I left that part alone.
Feel free to alter this recipe to suit your own taste and ingredients, but if you want to make exactly what I made (and it really is pretty incredible stuff), here’s my recipe for hibiscus lavender honey apple butter.
Recipes To Make Using Apple Butter
Once you make your apple butter, you can spread it on toast, biscuits or bread or even serve it with waffles or pancakes.
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If you’d like to go a couple of steps further and use apple butter as an ingredient in other recipes, here are some for you to consider.
- Yeasted Chai Apple Butter Coffee Cake(made with my Chai Spice Apple Butter, or you could use this apple butter. Or any apple butter!)
- Maple Apple Butter Polka Dot Cheesecake Bars
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
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Hibiscus Lavender Honey Apple Butter
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 pounds 12 oz mixed apples both sweet and tart
- 8 oz 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 16 oz 2 cups unfiltered apple cider (you can also use apple juice)
- 6 hibiscus flowers in syrup (I used Wild Hibiscus Flower Company brand)
- 2 Tablespoons syrup from the hibiscus flower jar
- 9 oz 3/4 cup lavender Honey Creme Lavender (I used Honey Ridge Farm. You can also just use a mild honey if you don’t have access to flavored honey)
- 1 whole lemon , with all the peel and pith cut away
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt (yes, 2 teaspoons. Trust me)
- 2 Tablespoons hibiscus syrup from the jar of hibiscus flowers
Instructions
- Scrub your apples well. Quarter them and put them in a large, heavy pot. No need to peel or core.
- Add the cider vinegar, apple cider, hibiscus flowers and first amount of syrup (2 Tablespoons), honey, lemon (just plop that whole guy in, seeds and all) and salt.
- Cover the pot and bring to a simmer. Cook the apples until completely soft, about 30 minutes. You may have to stir the pot a few times to make sure all the apples get some “bath time” in the vinegar/cider mixture so they soften up.
- Once all the fruit is nice and soft and falling apart, run everything (including all the liquid) through a food mill using the medium die. Put this puree in a heavy bottomed pot that is wider than it is tall. You want a large surface area to encourage evaporation.
- Bring the puree to a slow boil and then reduce the heat to low or medium low. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking and scorching (this becomes more likely the more concentrated the mixture becomes, so keep an eye on it, especially during the last couple of hours)
- Keep the mixture at a very slow “burble,” for 5 hours. The mixture will reduce by quite a lot and become a gorgeous dark reddish mahogany color.
- Stir in the last 2 Tablespoons of hibiscus syrup.
Optional Step
- Blend the apple butter in the blender for an extremely smooth texture. You certainly don’t have to, but I went ahead and went for it. The texture is silky smooth and lovely. Since the blending will blend a bit of air in and make your butter look cloudy. Cook it over low heat for another couple of minutes until it clears up. Then cool and chill.
- Enjoy over the next two or three weeks.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
Nutrition
Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
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And there you have it. I hope enjoy the apple butter!
What is your favorite kind of fruit sauce or spread?
Take care, and have a lovely day.
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Wow. Apple butter is not something that is common over in the UK but it looks so thick and glorious I’m sold on trying it out. I love your flavours here too – right up my street.
Thanks so much, Jane! I hope you give it a try and that you really enjoy it! It’s time apple butter hopped the pond! 🙂