This is what I canned one day last week: Apple Butter, Marmalade, and Chutney. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you are probably wondering where I got apples from this early- our first apples to ripen, Gravensteins, won’t be ripe for a couple of weeks yet.
This is a five gallon bucket full of Gravenstein apple thinnings. Yes, you’re supposed to thin apples when they are a lot smaller. As you can see, however, I didn’t get to it until I noticed that the tree is LOADED this year and the apples where so squished together that I was looking at a bunch of small apples if I didn’t give them some room quickly.
But since these apples were so much bigger than normal thinnings, I couldn’t bear to throw them away, so I decided to use them in recipes that call for sugar to offset the sour taste. And these babies were SOUR. Whew- talk about a pucker when I bit into one to see what I was dealing with!
I peeled and cut the biggest apples for the marmalade and chutney and made these first.
We really like Addictive Tomato Chutney (it’s my ketchup!) and sometimes I make a rhubarb chutney, but I’ve never made (or eaten) Apple Ginger Chutney before. Since apples and pork are often served together, I’m thinking it would be good with pork- what do you think? Since I wasn’t sure about this recipe, I only made four 1/2-pints.
I’ve also never made marmalade before, either. I decided to make an apple and lemon marmalade to use as glazes for ham and chicken, since I don’t think my family will be into putting lemons, rinds and all, on their toast. *smile*
I couldn’t find a recipe that didn’t use commercial pectin, however. I know that under-ripe apples are super high in pectin (it’s one of the fruits used in commercial pectin, I believe) so I didn’t want to use additional pectin. In the end I used a recipe from one of my cookbooks for apple marmalade, but added lemon instead of the orange it called for. Here’s my adapted recipe:
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Simple Apple-Lemon Marmalade (for glazes or toast)
- Heat 1-1/2 cups of water with 5 cups of sugar until dissolved
- Add 8 cups of chopped apples, 2 Tb. lemon juice, and one thinly sliced lemon (including rind)
- Boil this until it reaches the jelly stage (220 degrees), about 15-20 minutes, skimming any foam
- Fill jars, seal, and then process them in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. (For more information on canning, see Water Bath Canning Step-by-Step)
Makes seven 1/2-pints.
For the remaining small apples- quite a lot that I knew would take forever to peel- I simply cored them, cut them in quarters, and cooked them in a small amount of water until soft (you do have to stir often, though, because they will stick). Then I put them through one of these apple presses (I’m not sure of the actual name…) to get a smooth sauce and leave the skins behind. Easy.
Since I had been cutting apples and canning most of the day by this point, I decided to make apple butter in the slow cooker. I poured the (very sour) applesauce into my 6-quart slow cooker, added brown sugar, honey, and spices and set it to cook on high for an hour before turning it down to low for overnight.
The next morning I removed the lid and turned it up to high again to make the sauce thicker. It took about two more hours, actually, to get it to the thick consistency I like. Then I processed them in 1/2-pint jars for 10 minutes. I got nine half-pints- which will probably be all the apple butter we need for the year.
All this from apples I would have thinned and thrown away just a month earlier. With the addition of sugar, these all tasted great- you’d never know they started out as under-ripe apples!
Hmmm…maybe I should put off thinning the apples every year?
-Jami
I believe a cottage can be anywhere or anything (condo, ranch, farmhouse) as long as you have a "cottage mentality" which puts people above things, celebrates imperfections, embraces simplicity, and finds joy in everyday life. Thanks for joining me!
Anna- Well, we actually like to eat tart green apples like gravensteins (just riper, though!) in my house,
, but I’m looking forward to making some applesauce and canning it, as we didn’t get any apples last year. I also like to freeze some to use in crisps and smoothies (usually added with berries).
I’m sorry your tree is bare this year! Seems like apples are an every-other-year thing!
How long ago did you plant your tree? My in-laws planted what looked like sticks in the ground and finally…some x years later (can’t remember how many), they are producing apples. Do you treat them organically or with a little help?
Hello Jami
I am impressed. When you made all this, just from the thinnings, I’m wondering what you’ll do with that bumper crop when it’s ready.
I have Gravenstein apples in my garden too but this year there are very few apples.
Anna
It all looks so yummy! You are correct about the green (under-ripe)apples being high in pectin. Perfect for boiling the cores and the skins down to make apple pectin to make jams and jellies. The taste of jams made with apple pectin is so much better than with commercial pectin and jellies come out crystal clear!
Kristin- Great idea which I’ve thought about but haven’t tried yet. Now you’ve got me thinking about it again…
Ellen- We planted our semi-dwarf trees 6 years ago and this is the first year we’ve had this much fruit.
I don’t spray them with anything. I’ve used a lure and trap for apple maggots because they can destroy the whole apple, but I just deal with the apple coddling moth, as they are just in the core. (I found the lures and traps at Gardens Alive). But I never refreshed the lures this year, so we’ll see how much damage there is- there wasn’t much in this unripe batch.