Crabapple Jelly

[lord_seagrave]

Morning all,

 

Lady Seagrave and I went foraging on Bank Holiday Monday and picked a goodly quantity of crab apples.

 

We washed and chopped them, barely covered them with water and slowly brought them to a simmer. Simmered them for a good hour, mashed them and then poured the resulting mush into a jelly bag - about the size of a rugby ball.

 

However, yesterday morning, having left it dripping overnight the yield was only 120g of liquor (so about 120ml, but, since the measuring jug doesn't go down that far, that's only a guess!).

 

Undaunted, I boiled up the liquid with 60g of sugar (the big crystal, all-sugar preserving stuff - there's plenty of pectin in the apples) and the result is a very pretty little pot of pale pinky-orange jelly.

 

QUESTION (er, if you're still reading this):- how can I increase the yield of liquor?

• Do I boil the apples for longer initially?
  
• Do I need to add more water at the start?
  
• Do I mash the apples more thoroughly?
  
• All of the above?
  

 

Anybody?

 

 

LS

[claylady]

Hi. The recipe I use for crabapple jelly is.

6lb apples, one & half pints of water and sugar.

 

Stew the fruit in the water until quite tender. Strain using a jelly bag. 1lb of sugar to each pint of juice.

Boil until it shows signs of jellying. Pour into warm jars and tie down.

Hope this helps

[Jan147]

i made a rowan berry and crab apple jelly which tastes lovely with lamb. Quite messy to make and difficult to set at first but tastes with a bit of a kick and a lovely pale pinky colour but gin clear.

 

Did get quite a few strange looks from people when they saw me picking the rowan berries though.

if anyone want to try it I will post the recipe on here.

[henry d]

All of the above, bar length of boil 40-45 mins, but I would also add that you should roughly strain and squeeze first and then give it the fine overnight strain

[Doc Holliday]

I usually cut my crabapples up, halved at least or quartered if very large (squash ballsize). Like you, I barely cover them with water and boil until all the apples have become puly then leave to drip through jelly bag overnight followed by a good squeeze.

 

It's usually thought that by squeezing the pulp the jelly will be cloudy but mine is usually fairly clear. The crucial thing is temperature. Setting point has to be 110 clecius if I remember correctly. The rule of thumb method is to chill a small plate in the fridge and drop a small amount of juice on it. If it forms a skin or crinkles when you push it then it's ready.

 

To be honest, I found this to be a bit hit & miss so bought myself a preserving thermometer last year and it worked a treat. Took a bit of time getting to the setting point but it set beatifully. Made some plain jelly. some crabapple and mint jelly and some crabapple & rosemary jelly. Will make some chilli jam this year.

 

If you want to increase yield then use more apples, that's what I would do.

 

Forgot to mention that I also use jam sugar instead of regular asit has extra pectin in it.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Doc Holliday

[holly]

can you make jelly with normal apples probably eaters ?

[henry d]

yep!

[Doc Holliday]

Most apples are good for making jellies as they don't impart any real flavour, making it neutral to taste but to my mind I'd keep eating apples for eating or making cider, cooking apples for cooking and crabapples for making jelly because they are free and you can't do anything else with them, except maybe crabapple pugging. You put it on the end of a whippey stick and see how far you could luzz it (as we used to say down here). Traditionally pugging was done with dog poo and generally aimed at the poshnobs houses in Streamside Close but crabapples where acceptable as you could hear them bouncing off the rooftops.

Edited September 15, 2011 by Doc Holliday