How To Make Fruit Butter in the Slow Cooker

We've already talked about making apple butter this fall, but let's revisit the topic and talk about our favorite shortcut for making fruit butters. We had a ton of late season peaches to use up last week, so we popped them into the slow cooker.

To make apple or peach butter in the CrockPot, all you need to do is cut them up and peel them, if you wish, and pop them into the slow cooker. No need for water or other liquids. Add a little sugar, if you wish; we added about 1/4 cup of brown sugar to our five pounds of peaches — more for flavor than for sweetness. We added a lemon's worth of juice, just because these peaches were so low in acidity, and we added a few teaspoons of cinnamon and cloves.

We turned the slow cooker on low and cooked the peaches for about 14 hours. They were still a little watery after this, so we reduced the sauce on the stovetop for about a half hour after it finished cooking.

Ta-da! Easy peasy fruit butter. Have you ever used this method to make apple or peach butter?

(Images: Faith Durand)

Comments (6)

Can you do this with pears? Also, how long will it keep?

@ Squirrely definitely you can use pears, and it should keep refrigerated for a couple of weeks.
I don't use my crock pot nearly as much as I should. I really should pull it out for stock this weekend.

I have a bunch of small bland tasting apples. Would this be a way to use them or will I end up with bland apple butter?

@Meredith, I occasionally get a crop of bland apples from my garden tree, I've found the best thing to do is to add cinnamon or coriander.

Do you think this would work for fresh pumpkin? I picked one up with no real plans on what to do with it, and no carving in mind. :D

I've made the most awesome pumpkin butter in my slow cooker. I used pie pumpkins and cut them up and roasted them in the oven. This way, the skin just peels off. Toss the chunks of roasted pumpkin in the slow cooker and add brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves to suit your taste. Cook on low til you get to the desired consistency. I am telling you, it is incredible!