Crabapple Capers
An ornamental crabapple tree near my office has been loaded with little apples, hardly bigger than a big cherry. They were just going to waste; even the birds were not eating them so I picked a basket full. Looking on line, I found several recipes for jelly and began my experiment. Erin helped cut the stems and blossom ends off; we chopped them in half and threw them in a pot of water to boil. After they turned mushy, I drained the liquid, added sugar and began to cook down to jelly
stage. We did finally get jelly, although it seemed to take a lot of little apples to make 6 jars of jelly. It is a little on the tart side, although very, very sweet. My sister said it tastes like Horehound Candy! Nevertheless, they are pretty little things and were beautiful cooking in the kettle.
An ornamental crabapple tree near my office has been loaded with little apples, hardly bigger than a big cherry. They were just going to waste; even the birds were not eating them so I picked a basket full. Looking on line, I found several recipes for jelly and began my experiment. Erin helped cut the stems and blossom ends off; we chopped them in half and threw them in a pot of water to boil. After they turned mushy, I drained the liquid, added sugar and began to cook down to jelly
stage. We did finally get jelly, although it seemed to take a lot of little apples to make 6 jars of jelly. It is a little on the tart side, although very, very sweet. My sister said it tastes like Horehound Candy! Nevertheless, they are pretty little things and were beautiful cooking in the kettle. 
5 comments:
WOW....I didn't know. SO, that's what they look like. I never knew!!
Sean and i came home and Googled for "our" berries and figured out they are elder berries....It appears to me that it will take about 50 trees to get enough for a batch of jelly. LOL
Love reading your blog. Great photos, full of inspiration, history of the area, and a lively friendly dialog too, and this morning, mouth watering too! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the kind words Nancy; I really do appreciate them. Are you the Nancy who used to come to our Dogwood Acres yard sales?
I really do not like being "Anonymous", so am trying this again and checking a different option.
Yes, it's the garage sale fan, and also fan of your column for a long time now. And, also a fan or your sister's jam!
Maybe I'll run into you one of the days, always fun to see your smiling face!
Nancy
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