I awoke on Monday to the lovely smell of spice from the apple mixture in the crockpots. I let them go for about an hour longer, as I was busy. The big crockpot switches to warm after ten hours. The little one (Montgomery Wards) chugs along until I turn it off. I put the contents of the big one into my largest, deepest bowl before using my stick blender. The contents were nicely contained; had I done it in the crock, I would still be cleaning up. I put the pureed apple mixture back into the big crockpot, added the vanilla, then moved the contents of the smaller crockpot to the large, deep bowl and pureed it, before adding it to the big crockpot. It fit perfectly. I tasted it and decided to add another ¼ cup brown sugar and another 1/4 cup white sugar, as well as 2 tsp. more of cinnamon and ½ tsp. additional nutmeg. I also added another ½ tsp. vanilla. I asked Scott to taste it, and he thought it was fine. I then let the mixture simmer in the uncovered crockpot.
Although the recipe states two hours, I was cooking down a recipe and a half, and these apples were watery, so I kept an eye on it and kept stirring occasionally. As it approached three hours, the mixture mounded nicely on a spoon. I transported the crockpot out to the Annex, where I had the electric canner set up with sterilized jars. I ended up with six pints and a single 1-cup jar.
As Mike notes, the spices need to be increased from the base recipe, and I also add allspice and cloves. I think that the spices, and the amount of sugar and vanilla, depend in part on the apple variety. These were seconds, and I did not recognize many of the names. There were also more yellow apples than I usually like to use.
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