First pick your crab apples. We have three trees all quite new – a Golden Hornet which was covered in small hard yellow apples, a Jelly King which had quite a few fruit – looking like extra small yellow and pink apples, and a Red Sentinel which has in between sized orange-y fruit.
Then spend the next three years of your life destalking them – I got a blister but in hindsight I think a pair of scissors might have been the thing.
Put ’em all in a pan and add enough water to make them float and simmer them until they turn into a mush. I found the Jelly King mush-ed up quite quickly but the Golden Hornets took a couple of hours. Keep adding water so it doesn’t stick. You want the final thing to be mush-y not water-y. Kind of a wet porridge.
Now then, necessity is the mother of invention and all that. So rig yourself up something to strain the mush through overnight. We used a bag that is supposed to be for pressing apples rigged up on a washing dryer.
In the past I have used a pillowcase, an old t-shirt and on one notable occasion actually some muslin (which is what you are supposed to do it with). The finer the cloth, the clearer the liquid that will come out of it and therefore the more sparkly and clear the final jelly. But you get a lot less liquid through with a finer cloth. So it’s a trade off between aesthetics and volume in which generally in my life volume always wins.
Leave it for about 24 hours to drip drip drip into your receptacle.
Rescue the liquid, and add some sugar. The amount of sugar depends on the amount of liquid but more or less the same weight. I used jam sugar but there’s a lot of pectin in crab apples so you probably don’t need it and ordinary sugar perhaps with the juice of a lemon would be fine. I had a litre of liquid and used about 750g of sugar.
Boil it up until it reaches a good ‘rolling boil’ and test it will set by dabbing a bit on a saucer and waiting to see if it stays liquid or not.
Sterilised jars – I got three and a bit over.
Lovely stuff with cold meats, pork, in sauces or just on toast or crumpets.
Ruby&Ruch 