Rummy Applesauce

The inclusion of rum makes you wonder why you don't just dunk whole apples into booze more often, because it's absolute perfection and makes total sense in your mouth.



8-10 baking apples (I used Golden Delicious, but Cortlands or Rome or really, any bakers would work well)
2/3 cup unfiltered apple juice (or filtered, I just had the unfiltered on hand)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup vanilla-scented sugar
4 whole cloves
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t vanilla or almond extract (I used vanilla but if I would have had any almond, I would have used that instead)
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger
1 T corn starch
1/2 c white rum

Peel, core and slice/chop the apples then dump them into a heavy saucepan with 1/3 cup of the apple juice (you're reserving a 1/3 cup for thickening later), the sugars, spices, extracts and rum. Cover and let it cook down until the apples get soft-ish. Don't let it boil over like I did because the resulting syrup is a bitch to get off of your stovetop. When the apples almost look like components to applesauce, whisk together the corn starch and reserved apple juice in a coffee mug or whatever is handy, then pour into the miasma that is the saucepan. It will start to thicken immediately, but do not let this fool you: you have to bring it back up to almost a boil so that the corn starch doesn't taste acky. If it's way too thick, add a little more applejuice. Then eat that bad boy, but watch out for the four cloves, as they are lurking where you least expect them.