While taking a walk in Oxford Island, a local nature reserve, we spied a lot of crab apple trees. From said trees we filled a bag with apples. Now anyone who has tried a crab apple knows that they don’t make good eating but apparently they make good jelly. So I pulled out my trusty copy of Pam Corbin’s River cottage preserves handbook and got stuck in. For less that a bag of sugar we now have 5 jars of spiced crab apple jelly. It kinda taste of apple pie on toast, weird but delicious, only in my book it could do with a bit more spice or you could even throw some dried chillies into the mix for a spicy chilly jelly.
The thing is that crab apples are loaded with pectin so normal sugar will do.
Any how the recipie was
- 2 kg crab apples
- cinamon sticks and cloves
- Granulated sugard
Cut up the apples but leave the cores and pips in for that pectin. Boil in 1.2 litres of water till they are soft with the spices and then strain over night in some muslin. Don’t push or squese it through but let it Drain naturally.
The next day measure the strained liquid and for every 600ml of liquid allow 450g of sugar. Bring the liquid to the boil and then add the sugar. stir for a minute and the let it boil rapidly without stirring for about 10 minutes and add a drop of butter to stop a scum from forming. When setting point has been reached pour into jars and seal. It should keep for about a year and is a great Christmas pressie as it will be wicked with turkey.
If you want to make jam, jelly’s, chutneys or any preserves do yourselves a favour and buy the book. Its fantastic and will have paid for itself by the time your on your second batch.