living in the woods and making stuff

When I told my mom the other day that I was going to make crab apple jelly, her response was that I could make crab apple syrup by stirring my finger around in sugar water. Hrmph!

I went out and picked some crab apples anyways (with my friend Ayni!), and we brought them home, peeled them, and processed them for jelly. We were debating quite a bit as to whether we should make jam or jelly, or butter, or sauce. I am not too much fan of jelly, as I like the fruit in the product. Most of the recipes that I saw for crab apples however were for jelly, so I decided at least once I would have to make it.

We picked a lot of apples, and had quite a pot of juice after straining the fruit. I split up the juice and sugar into three pots, and added some thyme to one, some rosemary to the second pot, and left the third one plain. Then I set out to boil the liquid (sugar, herbs, and fruit) until the fruit set. I boiled the plain version way too long, and the resulting jelly was rather clumpy.

The thyme jelly was boiled a little bit less (but still too much) and wast moderately clumpy. The rosemary was boiled just right, resluting in a firm-ish looking jelly, with a bit of jiggle to it.

Also, I squeezed the juice bag as I was extracting the juice (NOT RECOMMENDED for state fair competition jellies) so my jelly is cloudy. But I didn’t have to wait for 8-12 hours for all the juice to slowly drip out…

These jars of jam are intended for use with my dad’s savory herb cheese biscuits. I am imagining a layer of butter, and then a thin spread of herbed crab apple jelly!