How To Can Apples For Baking

There are few things more Americana than homebaked apple pie. Those hot savory slices of apples oozing in cinnamon saucy goodness, along perhaps with a nice cold scoop of vanilla ice cream. Absolute perfection!

However, making homemade apple pie isn’t quite as easy as…pie.

Peeling apples to make fresh pie is both time-consuming and unnecessary when you could just can your own apples to make pies whenever you wish. Best of all, canned apples (in my humble opinion) taste even better than fresh ones!

The following recipe for canned apple is done using a water bath canner, and the apples are also hot packed, meaning they are boiled in syrup before canning. You can opt to raw pack the apples instead, and just pour the syrup over the top. However, you will lose a lot of valuable liquid during the process, and some of your apples will be partially resting in the air inside the jar. But this is a matter of personal taste. That said for this recipe we would be hot packing the apples prior to canning.

Canning Homemade Apple Pie Filling

Course:        Dessert

Cuisine:       American

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Servings:     5 Quarts

Ingredients

• 12 pounds of fresh apples
• 5-quart jars with rings and lids
• Jar Labels (optional)
• 5 cups of sugar
• 3 and 1/4 cups of water
• A large pot (tall enough to fit the jars and must be able to have at least 2 inches of water above the top of the jar)
• An additional pot to sterilize the rings and lids
• A canning tool kit

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 250-degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Prepare jars by washing them by hand using soap and hot water, do the same to the rings and lids. Leave until apples are ready.
3. Place jars only on a baking sheet and place in the oven.
4. Heat medium pot of water to boil. Reduce to simmer and add lids and rings.
5. Wash, core, and peel apples.
6. Cut apples lengthwise into 1/4 (ish) slices.
7. Combine water and sugar in a large pan and bring mixture to a boil.
8. Add apples to the syrup, reduce heat, and let simmer for 5 minutes.
9. Remove jars from the oven.
10. Pack apples into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Ladle syrup over apples, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
11. Use a plastic canning knife to remove all the air bubbles.
12. Carefully remove the lids and rings and place them on each jar. Then Han-tighten only.
13. Using the jar lifter, place five jars into the canning pot, ensure that they do not touch if they touch during this process the could shake too much and break.
14. Ensure that there is at least 1 1/2 to 2 inches of water covering the top of the jars. If there isn’t add more hot water.
15. Turn the heat up until full boil is achieved.
16. Set timer for 15 minutes.
17. Use Jar lifter to remove the jars from the boiling water. Then place them on a towel and do not move them for at least six hours.
18. Listen for popping noises over the next hour that means the jar is fully sealing!
19. Check to make sure all the jars are sealed, if not you may have to restart boiling process over again, or simply put them in the fridge to use first.