crabapple jelly from a flowering crab apple tree?

Good morning everyone

I have a flowering crab apple tree which my mother planted about 30 years ago, and was wondering if I can make crabapple jelly from the apples, they are slightly larger than a marble or about the size of a boulder.

Michelle

http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,crab_apple_jelly,FF.html


Here is a link to a lot of recipes for crabapple jelly. My tree is just loaded this year too but I'm leaving them for the birds this winter. :) Let us know how your jelly turns out.


Brenda

Thanks Brenda,

That site is great, had a hard time getting out of it. I found a lot of recipes. Thanks again

Michelle

Brenda,

My jelly turned out great, I love the taste of it and so does everyone else, now I wish I had made more, I put up 8 half pints and (didn't know if I was going to like it or not), there is only 2 left. It seems a few of my neighbors and son love it also.

Michelle

That's wonderful. Which recipe did you wind up using?

I have one large crabapple tree just loaded this year and 5 smaller trees with crabapples on them as well. I actually planted them for bird food in winter and I leanred they make great pollinators for apple trees which I have about 30 of.

Brenda

Crab apples- wash and remove blossom ends- cut into quarters, do not peel
Barely cover with water and boil until fruit is tender
Press this thru a jelly bag, (I didn't have a jelly bag, so just put thru a strainer twise)
Measure juice and bring to a boil
Add 3/4 cup of sugar to each cup of juice and boil rapidly to jelly stage.
Pour into sterilized jelly glasses and seal.

The jelly color turned out to be transparent red very pretty.
Next year I'm going to try honey instead of sugar and maybe stevia, (I have a plant).

Michelle

30 apple trees wow, I've been converting my property to edible a little at a time, I do have 6 wild apple trees that I had planted from the woods for my parents when I was a teen. They had been producing great until that last couple of years, clotting moths. Been working on getting rid of them.

I bought a cider press, just waiting for it to arrive, my neighbor has about 11 apple trees, I've been helping her pick them, were thinking of having a cider making party.

Michelle

I wish we could do more with our fruit but my husband and mom are both diabetic so I have to restrict just how much they can have. I have thought about trying to dehydrate the apples somehow and sweeten them with an artificial sweetener. I have two dehydrators but have not used them yet. Picked them up at yard sales.

When we moved in here 5 years ago there were 7 mature apple trees, grapes and rhubarb. We added 10 Zestar, 5 honeycrisp and 5 crabs the first year. We also added two cherry, two pear, two plum and two peach trees. This year we added 5 liberty and 3 melrose apple trees. I was surprised to get some fruit off the Liberty trees right away. There is an apple tree behind the house that is around 100 years old according to the previous owner. He said it was here when his parents built this house in the 30's. It was a big producing tree then. It still makes bushels and bushels of apples every other year.

We're starting to get cherries, pears, plums and peaches off the trees. Not a lot but some. When February comes we plan to go out and do some pruning on them. It must be done when they are dormant. We do keep them sprayed or we'd never get any good fruit. I wish I could learn how to do fruit trees without spraying but so far I haven't learned any techniques to do so.

The fruit does attract the deer and other wildlife. We have been using a lot of the excess fruit to treat our chickens with. They love apples. We plan to continue adding trees till we run out of room. :) I'd like an apricot tree but not sure if they grow where I'm at. I just picked and gifted the neighbor with most of my grapes. She gave me a bottle of wine for them. She makes wine out of the grapes. :)

You can't go wrong raising food. If nothing else you can barter with it or feed the wildlife around you. Who knows, maybe someday it will be a cash crop for us......especially the honeycrisp apples. They are awesome.

Brenda

Brenda,

Have you heard about Stevia, it's a plant that can replace sugar, great for diabetics, it's 30 times sweeter than sugar with no calories, some of the research explains that it can actually cure a diabetic. You can cook with it, can etc. The plant I have has very sweet leaves, with no after taste. I am ordering a cook book/how to dry etc. It's also great for people who have high clorestral.

I really need to leave but will write you more about it later

Michelle

I have heard of Stevia and even bought some. I didn't care for it. It had a taste of licorice or something weird. There is another sweetener on the market called Truvia which I think is made from Stevia. I might try that if I can find it. We mostly use Splenda. We really don't use much. I would like to try to grow stevia sometime. Is it perennial or annual ?