Ina Garten's Roasted Apple Sauce

The other weekend I had shall we say a glut of apples in the fruit bowl.  I love fruit and desserts but there were just tooooooooo many apples to be used in one weekend in that way.  I had seen a recipe for roasted apple sauce on The Barefoot Contessa that week and thought I might give it a try.

I did change it up a bit, as I have a want to do.  I left out the cinnamon and butter, the flavour is a very intense apple flavour and if I hadn't put it in jars and processed them I would probably have sat there with a spoon and just ate the whole lot out of the pan.

Juice of 2 oranges
Juice of one lemon
1/4 cup brown sugar
12 apples (mixed)

 

In a non reactive pot (or baking dish with a lid) place the orange and lemon juice and the brown sugar.

 

 

Peel, core and cut the apples into slices, or if you have a handy dandy apple thingie like I have use that, it cuts out a heap of time.

 

 

Toss the apples in the juice and sugar mixture as soon as peeled to ensure they don't go brown,  place the peel of the red apples if you used them in with the apples this gives the sauce a nice pink tinge when cooked.  Heat your oven to 180C and place the covered baking dish for 1 and a half hours.

 



 

Once cooked remove from the oven and with a whisk you can break up the apples,  depending how chunky you like your sauce or how smooth,  there is no need to use a food processor as the apples with almost dissolve.

 

At this stage you can either serve the sauce at room temperature or process and preserve for a later time.  The sauce will keep in the fridge for 2 weeks in an airtight container.  If processing, fill 4 sterilised jars, cover with lids as per manufacturers instructions and place into pot of simmering water so that the jars are just covered with water and simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove the jars from the pot at the end of this time and allow to cool for 24 hours without moving.