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Crab Apple Jelly
Cut the crab apples into halves, then into quarters, weigh, put in a porcelain kettle, and to each five pounds allow one pint of water. Proceed and finish precisely the same as for apple jelly.
The instruction to "proceed and finish precisely the same as for apple jelly" assumes you have the companion recipe in front of you. Here is what that method involves, plus the few points where crab apples behave differently from dessert apples.
- The whole fruit goes inDo not peel or core. Skins, cores and pips carry most of the pectin and much of the colour, which is why the recipe says only to quarter the fruit. Stems and blossom ends should be pulled off, and any bruised or wormy sections cut away.
- Porcelain kettleThis means an enamelled cast-iron or enamelled steel pot, not porcelain. The point is a non-reactive surface: bare copper, iron or aluminium will dull the colour and can give the fruit acid a metallic edge. Stainless steel is the modern equivalent.
- The water ratio is a minimumThe water ratio is sparing -- One pint (2 cups) per 5 lb of fruit is less than many jelly recipes call for, and it will only work if the fruit is kept covered over a low heat so the apples largely steam in their own juice. If your pan is wide or your crab apples are very firm, add water until the fruit is nearly covered; too much water simply means a longer boil later.
- The dripping stageSimmer covered until the fruit collapses, roughly 20 to 30 minutes, then pour into a scalded jelly bag or a colander lined with several layers of damp muslin and let it drip several hours or overnight. Do not squeeze or press the bag; the jelly will turn cloudy and no amount of skimming fixes it.
- SugarNineteenth-century apple jelly recipes commonly give anything from three-quarters of a pound to a full pound of sugar to each pint of strained juice. Crab apples are tart and pectin-rich, so the lower proportion is generally enough. Heat the juice first, then stir in the sugar off the boil until dissolved.
- Knowing when it is doneBoil hard and skim. The setting point is 220F (104C) at sea level, about 8 degrees above the boiling point of water where you are. Failing a thermometer, use the old sheeting test: jelly falling from a cold spoon should run together into a single curtain rather than dripping in separate drops.
- SealingBooks of this period often say only to pour into glasses and cover with paper and paraffin wax, which is no longer considered a sound seal. Use current water-bath canning guidance for jellies, or simply refrigerate and use within a few weeks.
Crab apples are the sour, small-fruited apples that grow half-wild in hedgerows and old orchards, and their value in a nineteenth-century kitchen was chemical as much as culinary: they are exceptionally high in pectin and acid, the two things a jelly needs to set. Before commercially extracted pectin was on the market, cooks reached for crab apples, green apples or currants when they wanted a reliable set, and often combined them with softer, lower-pectin fruit for the same reason. Tart fruit jellies were also standard accompaniments to cold meat and game, not only a breakfast preserve. The terse cross-reference to apple jelly is characteristic of household manuals of the era, which assumed a reader working through the book rather than looking up one page at a time.