Time Commitment
It took me 90 minutes to make 7 cups from scratch, including cooking time.
Leftovers Potential
Homemade applesauce can be refrigerated for a week to ten days; it can also be frozen or canned for longer-term storage. Mott's recommends its applesauce to be used within ten days of opening.
What The Testers Said
First let me introduce our panel.
THE HEALTH NUT
A delicate eater, the health nut is calorie conscious but also likes to eat well
THE FOODIE
Calorie agnostic, our foodie judge has a sophisticated palate and a love of cooking
THE DUDE
Ambivalent toward food trends and health concerns, this guy just wants to be fed when he's hungry
THE KID
Between ages of 9 and 12 years old, not jaded, typically not into strong flavors
Testers sampled both applesauces blind. Everyone characterized the store-bought's texture as grainier and more watery compared with the silky homemade version. Homemade was roundly praised as having a more complex flavor.
The Health Nut: Homemade. "Store-bought tastes over-sweet, whereas homemade is nice and tart."
The Foodie: Homemade. "It has really great body and texture, and the flavor has a nice complexity."
The Kid: Store-bought. "The homemade is too sour for me."
The Dude: Homemade. "The store-bought has a gritty, almost sawdusty texture and a weird aftertaste."
The Verdict
Make it.
Store-bought applesauce doesn't hold a candle to the richly flavored, silky, tangy homemade. Invest a little bit of time in cooking it from scratch, and you can freeze or can enough leftovers to make the fruit of your labor last. The exception: If you're playing to the delicate palates of a kids-only audience, consider buying the unsweetened Mott's Natural version, and add honey and cinnamon to it before serving.
--Elizabeth Gunnison
