green apple jelly

Because, why NOT have two blogs?

The other (and more recent one) being here. Anyway, that one’s about clothes, so I can’t post about jelly there; it would get all sticky.

More Green Apple jelly

The other day I was enjoying the sun in Albany Quadrangle, an adorable little spot near the theater with several apple trees, and noticed that the ground was covered in unripe windfall apples . . . so I picked up almost more than I could carry and carted them all back into the library where I went looking among the stacks for books about preserving fruit. The Joy of Cooking one was the only one that seemed really useful, so I made green apple jelly!

I spent about a day trying to get ALL the juice out of the apples, until I mixed it with water to make it more like juice and less like sour apple syrup, and realized that if I kept getting more juice I would run out of sugar and wouldn’t be able to use it all anyway. There is as much sugar as apple in there (1-1 ratio, crazy!) but I didn’t dare risk cutting the sugar and compromising the jelly.

I stayed up really late canning and frantically reading about the jelling point while trying not to let my preserves overcook. I got to drop syrup on chilled saucers and everything! It still hasn’t set completely, but my trusty cookbook informs me it can take 1-3 weeks for jelly to finish setting, and it’s already recognizable as jelly.

Jelly close-up

It’s also not the clearest jelly ever made, since I used two layers of cheesecloth instead of four (while really professional people strain it TWICE), but I think it’s pretty, and it’s the first thing I ever canned on my own!

2 thoughts on “green apple jelly

  1. Madison

    Alice dear, this is great! I’ve never made jelly but I do can a lot, last summer I experimented with forgoing commercial pectin and using bits of apples…lots of fun. My favorite preserving book is Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff. She has tons of unique recipes for both fruits and veggies, and they’re organized by season, which is helpful.

    Reply
  2. Shannon

    wow, that looks great! I have always been afraid to make jelly, hence the jars of seedy jam in the pantry, which is too seedy even for me.

    Reply

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