October is the Time for Hot Apple Cider

I LOVE hot apple cider.

Not the kind you get from a packet but the real stuff.  Yes, the packet stuff is o.k. but it's just not as tasty as the real thing.  I was on a quest yesterday for just the right kind of recipe.  You can wing it but I wanted to  know what the kids were liking these days.

Thanks to the internet-machine and my go-to Google search, I found just what I wanted on All Recipes.  Here is the link if you want to go straight to: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/hot-apple-cider/  but I'm still going to give it to you here along with the tips and tricks that I read about and the adjustments that I made to it myself.

Hot Apple Cider

Ingredients

• 6 cups apple cider
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 6 whole allspice berries
• 1 orange peel, cut into strip
• 1 lemon peel, cut into strips
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 small pat of butter
• 1-2 Macintosh or Jonagold Apples

1. Pour the apple cider and maple syrup into a large stainless steel saucepan.
2. Place the cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries, orange peel and lemon peel in the center of a washed square of cheesecloth; fold up the sides of the cheesecloth to enclose the bundle, then tie it up with a length of kitchen string. Drop the spice bundle into the cider mixture.
3.  Place the saucepan over moderate heat for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the cider is very hot but not boiling.
4.  While this is heating up, very thinly slice your apples, and then dice them.  Once the cider is hot, remove the spice bundle, and then drop the apple pieces in to the hot cider.  Add in your small pat of butter stirring until completely dissolved.
5.  Remove the cider from the heat. Ladle the cider into big cups or mugs, adding a fresh cinnamon stick to each serving if desired.

Notes:

• Make sure your citrus peels do not have any pith (the white part of the fruit between the skin and the fruit) attached to the skin. The pith is bitter and will add bitterness to your cider. The next time around that I make this (on Halloween in a few days) I’m going to try grating the skin as opposed to the peeling to see if this works just as well.
• Do not leave your spice bundle in the cider for an overlong period of time.  The citrus peel will embitter your cider.
• Some people just cut up the fruit and tossed it into the drink.  I did not do this.
• Some people also substituted the citrus peels/fruit for pineapple juice.
• This recipe can be easily translated to a crock pot recipe, and can also be doubled, tripled and etc. very nicely.
• I read a whole bunch of reviews as I prepped to make this recipe and if you don't have cheesecloth it was very common to use coffee filters tied with string, or to just dump the seasonings into the cider so they were free floating.  I had cheesecloth and thought it was worth using it so I didn't have to fish things out of the pot. 
• I loved the apples floating in the cider.  Sliced thin enough they soften right up and are a tasty little perk in your cup.

Conclusion:
I'm considering this a keeper and a good find.  It is a modifiable recipe for what you have available in the house, or for what your preferences are as are any recipes.  I really liked this particular recipe with the minor modification of adding the thinly sliced apples and the small pat of butter.  I will be making a big crockpot full of this cider for Halloween evening and I expect there will be nothing left over.