Thursday, October 8, 2009

Making Crabapple Jelly

I've extolled the virtues of crabapple jelly enough and bored everyone to tears with my efforts to find and harvest crabapples this year, so now I'll take it to the final step. Making my crabapple jelly.

Step 1 - pick crabapples:

Step 2 - sort and wash fruit:


Step 3 - enjoy the glowy, red goodness:


Step 4 - chop fruit:


Step 5 - add to pot with water, simmer, crush, simmer:


Step 6 - hang pulp to strain out juice:

Step 7 - boil juice with sugar and pectin (unless you make yours by bringing only the juice and sugar mixture to the boiling jelly point without adding pectin). Fill jars:


Step 8 - groan over sticky mess:

Step 9 - process jars in boiling water bath:


Step 10 - remove jars from bath:


Step 11 - Let jars cool and rejoice in the happy pinging noise of lids sealing themselves:


Step 12 - Thank everyone who helped you in this effort: doggy, who accompanied fruit gathering expedition; daughter, who helped pick fruit and process into jelly, and took all of the pictures of the process; daughter's boyfriend who chopped, stirred, filled jars and picked hot jars out of water bath.

6 comments:

Adrienne said...

I don't know why I've never tryed making jelly. You make it look like fun. And wow, what a gorgeous color it is!

Lisa said...

Oh I really love this! Thank you.

ICQB said...

Hi adrienne!

It is a gorgeous color, isn't it? When you spread it over your toast it almost has a neon glow!

And the taste.....mmmmmmm.

ICQB said...

Hi Ocean Girl!

Glad you liked it! And you're welcome.

joco said...

Hiya,

I am awe-struck....
What a post. You don't just talk about it: you actually DO it all.
And those spotlessly clean shiny pans, that immaculate white sink, and then, to top it all: umpteen hands. ????

BTW, when is the book fair? Good luck if it is still to come.

ICQB said...

Hi Jo!

Ha! I sometimes wish I had umpteen hands. As you can see, this was a group project - and my daughter took all of the pictures, I forgot to mention that in the post - off for an edit...

The book fair is the 17th, and thanks for the good luck wishes!