Have you ever walked into someone’s home, inhaled deeply at the smell of baking cookies or cakes, and wanted to plant yourself there, if just for aromatherapy purposes?

Well, real estate agents everywhere get something cinnamon-y going at open houses to get potential home-buyers in the mood for loving that dwelling. It’s a fact that apples baking with a hefty dash of cinnamon in staged homes may be the key to success none of the antics of all those new-age celebrity Realtors on HGTV can match.

This brings me to why I’ll go to what may seem like trouble to keep Garden State apple cider simmering on the stove for hours, intermittent stirring needed, when I easily could buy a jar of the stuff.

It’s aromatherapy, for hours on end.

It’s a New England staple, boiled apple cider, and for a long time I never departed Maine or Vermont without a bottle of it packed back to Jersey. These days, better specialty food shops here, such as Delicious Orchard in Colts Neck, reliably carry boiled cider, and you could indeed buy a bottle.

You also can perfume your house with relaxing scents for hours, while you go about your business. Or just let busyness pass you by for an afternoon and indulge your olfactories.

The result will be a condiment you’ll use for months – maybe one you can test on yourself now, and then make a batch later this fall for holiday gift-giving.

There’s a lot of excellent quality apple cider made in New Jersey and that’s where you should start: Buy a gallon of it and get out a good-size – figure around 5-quart – sturdy pot. A heavy-bottomed Dutch oven ought to do. Pour the cider into the pot, boil and then let simmer. If you’re like me, you’ll shake a teaspoon of cinnamon into the cider and let it and the apple liquid mingle and meld. (And emanate those aromas.) I’d tell you to nap, but you do need to stir the cider from time to time as it simmers its way to a consistency that’s syrupy but not quite as thick as honey.

That’s the process, in a nutshell. One gallon of cider yields about 2 cups of boiled cider, which sounds like a little and sort of is. It also explains why you’ll spend anywhere from $12 to $16 for a 16-ounce jar of already-made boiled cider. Devotees willingly shell out the bucks, because uses for boiled cider are myriad and many.

As you might expect, it’s a gold mine for bakers, adding a zippy sweetness to anything deserving of its multifaceted flavor. Spoon it over ice cream and yogurt, swish into smoothies, top pancakes, French toast and waffles, whir with butter in a food processor to make a spread that ups the ante on muffins, scones and quick breads. Sub it for maple syrup and honey; however you’d use those two, you can use boiled cider.

But boiled cider, because of its fruit base and intriguing tartness, goes other places, too. It’s a natural finishing accent for squashes, a more subtle perk-up for sweet potatoes, a flash-in-a-pan glaze for carrots and parsnips, a counterpoint to tart-at-another-level cranberries, a boost for onions you’re sauteing into a caramelized state. Add a few spoonsful to a Belgian-style beef stew, swirl a teaspoon over butternut squash soup and don’t hold back on brushing it atop chicken, pork and even salmon.

Have a ball by teeny-dicing chilies – serranoes, habaneros – and adding them to a little jar of boiled cider to make a saucy condiment for roasted root vegetables – and all of the aforementioned savory foods. It’s a hot-sweet tango that’s cunning and irresistible.

So boil a gallon of cider with the goal of letting the end result enliven many of this season’s favorite foods. The aromatic process is a bonus.

A how-to/recipe:

Pour a gallon of Garden State cider into a sturdy 5-quart Dutch oven and bring to a boil over medium-high heat on the stove top. Once it comes to a boil, let it bubble for a minute and then reduce the heat to medium-low, stir in a teaspoon of cinnamon, and let it simmer for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so.

Reduce the heat to low and let it cook for another 2 hours, stirring from time to time. It’s done when its consistency is thick and syrupy, like maple syrup but not quite as thick as honey. If it needs to cook longer to reach that consistency, let it – just keep it at low, let it cook slowly and stir regularly as it often gets a bit sticky in end-stage cooking. Its color will evolve into a deep amber-brown. A helpful tip I learned years back from Vermont-based King Arthur flour company is that boiled cider is ready when it’s stirred vigorously and copper-colored little bubbles form.

A gallon of apple cider yields about 2 cups of boiled cider. After it cools to room temp and you pour it into glass jars with tight-fitting lids, it can be stored in the fridge for a year or longer.