Crabapple Jelly

[Ole Joe Clarke]

Anybody besides my wife make crab apple jelly? She uses the crabapples that look like minature red delicious apples. Makes the best jelly you ever ate.

In a hot buttered homemade biscuit, it's wonderful.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

[twc1964]

Although I've never had crabapple jelly, my sister's and I ate crabapple like those when we lived in Illinois as kids. Fond memories of those days.

[johnson1942]

im going to plant several crabapples next spring for juice and jelly. we have a lot of cedars in the yard. they transmit cedar rust and the trees die in a couple of years. dolgo crabapple seems to have the resistance to it, anyone with experience in this please give me some info so i can plant the right ones and they dont die.

[Blackwater]

Is this the same as the yellow and red (mixed) smallish apples that a friend and I used to make wine from, that he called "horse apples?" They're about 2/3 the size, on average, of regular red delicious and granny smiths. Regional names for plants vary so widely, it's hard to talk about these things without a little clarification, and here in Ga. we seem to have our own dialect! Makes things confusing, for sure!

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I remember Mama talking about "horse apples", but I don't know what they are. The Crab apple I'm talking about is a little larger than a marble, beautiful to look at and are great for jelly.

[MaryB]

Mom used to make apple butter from them... great stuff!

[Ole Joe Clarke]

Good Morning,
The drought made the crab apples extra sweet this year, thus the jelly is wonderful. The neighbor gave us the crab apples, my much better half (MBH) made the jelly.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

[srtolly]

That's what my counter looked like last week. My lovely wife makes crabapple jelly and syrup for the pancakes. Today will be apple pie filling.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

[Walla2]

I know what you are talking about. We have an commercial orchard the next farm over that uses them as pollinators. They let us glean after harvest, which is almost over. Crabapple Jelly, apple sauce, and all other things that can be made from it all is at our house. Life is good.

[WallyinIN]

A little less pectin and you get crab apple syrup. Awefully good on a stack of hot pancakes. My wife and I always split our harvest between the two.

Wally

[Ole Joe Clarke]

My wife didn't add any pectin to the crab apple jelly. She never does, the crab apples have enough already.

[runfiverun]

how's about a recipe?
our yellow crab apple tree would have made awesome jelly this year.
the apples were a little bigger and a little sweeter than they usually are, I could stand to eat them off the tree.

I think the horse apples are like the wild apples I see here and there, they are about half size of a normal apple.

and how do you guy's peel and core the little guy's?
I thought about all the work involved peeling and coring something smaller than a golf ball and re-thought that plan pretty quickly.

[MaryB]

Grandma had a fruit press we used. And a fruit crusher. Just smashed up the whole apples and pressed out the juice then boiled down the remains for the pectin. I learned a lot of old school stuff from her! The crab apple pectin was also used to set the cherry jam and the raspberry. Little was wasted and the crushed apple remains were fed to the hogs...

[Ole Joe Clarke]

We don't peel them or remove the stems. Remove ALL the leaves, wash, cook until soft, then mash and squeeze to remove the juice. Discard the pulp. I think the peel is what gives the jelly the ruby red color. That is far as I can go with a recipe, my much better half will have to supply that.

[runfiverun]

okay that gives me a good start.
I think it would work for the smaller plums we have too I could cut them and pit them and work from there.
now I just need to get the wife on board.

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I saw a Ball Canning book at Wal Mart recently. I'm sure it gives instructions for jelly making and lots of other things. There might be something on their web site.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

[MaryB]

The Ball Blue Book of Canning is something everyone should own. Some decent recipes and you can always add more spices than listed as long as salt and vinegar or sugar levels are followed.

[Lloyd Smale]

my crab apple tree has a million little tiny apples about the size of a raspberry on it. Never get any bigger.

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I saw two left over biscuits in the kitchen. I think I will have them with crab apple jelly and coffee in a little while.