What else can you do with crab apples other than jam or jelly? I've just been given a bag load by a friend and am a bit stumped.
We rarely eat jam/jelly, so it would be sitting in our cupboards for years before we got round to it.
Use them in various chutney recipes?
Tricia
Googled this from a Wiccan Herbalist site!
Sweet Pickled Crabapples
Wash the fruit, but leave the stems on. To each pound of fruit, add 3/4 pound sugar, 1 cup cider vinegar, and 1 cup water. Tie a dozen cloves, two 3-inch sticks of cinnamon, and a few blades of mace in a square of muslin. Make a syrup of the sugar, vinegar, water and spices and simmer about 3 minutes. Add crabapples and simmer just until tender. Do not overcook. Ladle into hot sterilized jars, covering the apples with the syrup. Seal. Serve cold as a relish with any kind of meat or fowl.
O'Connor, Hyla, The Early American Cookbook,1974.
Crab Apples
5 lbs. crab apples
1 quart vinegar
7 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon whole cloves
2" cinnamon stick
Wash crab apples, leaving skin and stem, if desired; prick several holes in each. Bring to a boil remaining ingredients, and crab apples, and cook slowly until tender. Pack apples in sterilized jars and fill jars with the hot syrup. Seal securely and store.
Gewanter, Vera and Dorothy Parker, Home Preserving made easy, 1975.
Crabapple wine Gewanter
4 quarts crabapples
2 quarts water
1 cup white raisins, chopped
1/2 package yeast
3 cups sugar
Slice the apples thinly, without peeling or coring them. Soak them in lukewarm water together with the raisins and yeast and let ferment in a warm place, stirring daily, for two weeks. Strain through muslin or jelly bag, squeezing well so that you'll gather all the liquid. Stir in the sugar and let stand, at the same warm temperature for another two weeks, undisturbed this time. Strain again through muslin or folded cheesecloth, let the liquid decant for twenty-four hours, then siphon into bottles and cork loosely. When fermentation has ceased, cork tightly and store for at least six months before using.
Gertie's Crabapple Liqueur
Instead of crabapples, you can also use chokecherries with scotch or raspberries with rum.
For 1 quart:
4 quarts crabapples
4 cups sugar
3 cups vodka
Take a 4 quart mason jar and fill it with crabapples that have been washed and quartered (you could take the stems and cores out, but it makes no difference and is a lot more work). Add 4 cups sugar and 3 cups vodka. Store the jar on its side, turning once every day for 16 days to get the sugar to dissolve. After 16 days, filter out the fruit bits, and bottle.
Darren George (Darren.George@UAlberta, CA) Sept 14, 1995
found in Cats Meow 3, Mark Stevens and Karl Lutzen