Crab Apple Jelly
Once again the hedgerow yielded a heavy crop of windfallen crab apples, and I felt bound to try to make use of them. I have made crab apple jelly for several years now with some success, so set myself to do that again.
I gathered a bagful of sound fruits, took them home, washed them and weighed out a portion (1.215 kg). These I halved and put in my leaky old pressure cooker with 1.2 litres of water, brought them to the boil (at atmospheric pressure) and simmered them for 2 hours.
When cold, I put the whole lot into a 'muslin' bag (derived from an old pillow), and set to drip overnight. Next morning, I squeezed out nigh as much again with my hands and set the fluid aside. The pulp I re-extracted with a second litre of water, and that I think was a mistake -- though not fatal. Next time I shall use less water, perhaps 750 ml. I brought the mixture to the boil again, and again simmered for an hour. Filtered again through the 'muslin', I combined the two liquid extracts into the cleaned pressure cooker. I added 1.0 kg of ordinary granulated sugar. (In previous years I added the same weight of sugar as of the fruit, as I do for seville-orange marmalade, but wondered if my jelly was 'too' sweet.) The volume of all this amounted to 2.88 litres, determined by measuring the diameter of the cylindrical pan and the depth of liquid; and applying the formula:
Volume = depth x 3.14159 x (diameter/2)^2. (volume in ml, if measuring in cms.)
Bringing the sweetened extract to the boil and simmering for an hour brought the volume to 2.58 litres, but there was no sign of setting. So I turned up the gas and fanned the open pan to enhance the evaporation. Half an hour brought the volume to 1.627 litres. A sample allowed to cool formed a wobbly gel.
So, on the third day, I brought the pan gradually to the boil, with stirring, warmed 8 jam jars in the oven to 80º, and scalded their lids in a basin with a kettle of boiling water. After switching off the gas, I allowed the pan to cool for 15 minutes before ladling the hot jelly into a pint jug and pouring it into the jam jars. I filled 5 standard (454 gm) jars.
