Recipe for Naturally Sweetened Apple Butter

So get out the butter and put away the sugar, we're going to make apple butter, real apple butter, the "slow food" approach to homemade apple butter. In this recipe, the apple butter is naturally sweetened with apple cider, dotted with a little butter for richness and spends a long (loooong!) time in the oven or in a slow cooker. So yes, this apple cider is "sugar free" – or better put, has "no added sugar" and "no sugar substitutes" like Splenda and the like. It's just gorgeous, very apple-y, what apple butter is "supposed to taste like" – I hope you love it! My two burning questions about apple butter. First, why doesn’t apple butter call for – um, well, you know – butter? My recipe does, just a touch, which gives this lovely butterscotch-colored apple sauce, an unctuous mouth feel. After several hours in the oven at low temperature, it’s so smooth, so creamy, it’s on the verge of something akin to custard, al