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Spiced Apple Jelly
peck Duchess apples 3 pints vinegar 1 pint water I ounce cinnamon tied in 1/2 ounce cloves { } bag Let cook until the apples are soft, then drain in jelly bag; boil the juice twenty minutes, add three fourths a cup of hot sugar for each cup of juice and let boil until it jellies.
A sharp, vinegar-based apple jelly meant for the meat platter rather than the toast rack. The apples supply all the pectin, so the only real skill is judging the set.
- The hinge: stop at the jelly pointCook the sweetened juice to 220F (8F above the boiling point of water where you live), or until a spoonful drawn out and cooled sheets off the edge rather than running. Because the sugar here is only three quarters of a cup per cup of juice, it will take longer to reach that point than a one-to-one jelly, and overcooking turns it to candy.
- A peck of applesA peck is 8 dry quarts, about 10 to 12 lb of whole apples. Halve or quarter them but leave the skins and cores in; that is where most of the pectin and much of the colour sits.
- Duchess applesDuchess of Oldenburg, an early, very tart summer apple still grown in cold regions. Any hard, sour, underripe apple works: crab apples, Bramley, Granny Smith, or windfalls picked before they sweeten.
- Vinegar strengthPeriod cider vinegar was not standardised and varied considerably in strength. Modern 5 percent cider vinegar is a reasonable substitute; do not use a mild rice or wine vinegar, as the acidity is doing preserving work as well as flavouring.
- The spice bagWhole cinnamon bark and whole cloves, tied in muslin so the jelly stays clear. An ounce of each is assertive; measured loosely that is about a quarter cup of cloves and eight to ten average cinnamon sticks.
- "Hot sugar"The instruction points to warming the sugar before stirring it in, so the boiling juice does not drop off the boil; period cookbooks recommend it, though how widely it was followed is not documented. Any granulated sugar will do; it dissolves fast enough that skipping the warming step costs little.
- Draining the bagLet the pulp drip on its own. Squeezing or pressing the jelly bag pushes fine solids through and the jelly turns cloudy, which no amount of later boiling will fix.
- Yield and jarsA peck of apples with two quarts of liquid gives a large batch; expect well more than eight half-pint jars, depending on how much juice the fruit gives. Fill hot sterilised jars, seal, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes if you want it shelf-stable; refrigerate otherwise.
- How to serve itThis is a condiment jelly. It belongs beside pork, ham, cold roast lamb or a sharp cheese rather than on bread.
Spiced and vinegared fruit jellies belong to the same nineteenth-century impulse as chutney, spiced currants and pickled peaches: a sweet-sour relish to cut the fat of roast and cold meat at a time when a table was expected to carry several such small dishes. The combination of high acid, heavy sugar and a hard boil made them keep well without refrigeration. Duchess of Oldenburg is an early apple of Russian origin that ripens in high summer and does not store; sharp and better cooked than eaten raw, it was the sort of fruit a household turned into jelly rather than let spoil.