Crabapple Jelly

The other day I found an ad on Craigslist from a lady saying she had a bumper crabapple crop and anyone wanting to come pick was welcome to take all they could...for free!  Stoked, I e-mailed her and set up a time to come visiting.  She ended up having two trees, and I may be back to pick her tree some more.  I had considered making relish, but I settled on some spiced crab apple jelly.  Maybe settled is the wrong word, because I think this is the best jelly I've ever made.

I've never made crabapple jelly before, so I losely followed these instructions.  I needed about 8 cups of cut up crabapples.  I had to inspect every apple cut up for worms, and other yuckies.  I only kept the most perfect looking ones for the jelly.  If you maximize the picture to the left, you'll see plenty of apples that have worm holes, and bad spots.  All of those were tossed out.

I cut the apples all up and stuck them in a pot and covered them with water.  I didn't fill the pot up, only just so they were covered, and not floating.  I added a few sticks of cinnamon and a few cloves from a mulling spice blend I had and let it boil for about 15 minutes.  I went light on the spice, a little can go a long way.  Then I set up my cheese cloth and a colander.  The directions I linked said you could also use old pantyhose...I really don't recommend it.  Get cheesecloth from the grocery store.  You'll need a few layers.  I tried to get my jelly to be as clear as I could, so I didn't stir this mixture, or smash the cooked apples to get the juice out.

Here is one view of the set up I had.  I allowed the juice to just drip through the cheese cloth and into the bowl.

Here's another shot of how I drained the fruit.  If you want good and clear jelly, let it drip on it's own.  I let it sit for about an hour and a half.  The juice cooled, then I started the jelly making itself.

Add the juice back into your pot, and get the heat up going again.  I added two cups of sugar to this mixture and cooked it while I sterilized the jars.  I brought the sugar juice mixture to a rapid boil for fifteen minutes, and stirred it almost constantly while waiting.  Once the glass jars were ready, I poured them right in. I did do a freezer test to make sure the jelly got the right consistency.  I didn't use store pectin because apples naturally have so much pectin in them.  Testing for me was important because of that.

In the end I had some very pretty jars of some almost clear jelly.  I have plenty more apples to go, so I'm going to try to make some more before they go bad.  In the end, this cost me the equivalent of two cups of sugar, since the apples were free. Yay craigslist. :)

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