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Crab-Apple Jelly
This is generally the cheapest jelly made, as the fruit is less expensive than that required for the other kinds. Rub each apple until it shines, removing the blossom end and any spots that show signs of decay. If the apples are very small and seem to be dusty, they may be washed, for the rubbing is very tedious unless the fruit is of fairly good size. Four quarts, measured after the apples are cut in pieces will make eleven glasses of jelly. The seeds are always left in for the boiling. Allow a pound of sugar to a pint of juice, unless a very tart jelly is desired, when three-fourths of a pound will be sufficient
The book assumes you already know how jelly is made and gives you only the parts specific to crab apples: the ratios and the yield. Here is what it leaves out.
- The missing methodCut the apples in quarters, barely cover with water, and simmer until soft, then drain through a scalded jelly bag or several layers of cheesecloth. Let it drip on its own; squeezing the bag forces pulp through and gives cloudy jelly.
- Why the seeds stay inCrab apple cores, seeds and skins carry most of the pectin, and the fruit is acidic enough to set without help. No commercial pectin is needed here, and added pectin tends to give a stiffer, less clear jelly.
- The sugar ratio in cupsA pound of sugar is roughly 2 1/4 cups, so a pound to a pint of juice is about 2 1/4 cups sugar to 2 cups juice. The three-quarter-pound version is about 1 3/4 cups sugar per 2 cups juice and will set slightly softer as well as tarter.
- "Eleven glasses"A jelly glass of the period commonly held 6 to 8 fluid ounces, so eleven glasses is roughly 8 to 11 cups of finished jelly from four quarts of cut fruit. Yields vary with how juicy the fruit is.
- Knowing when it is doneBoil the juice and sugar hard and test at 220F, or 8 degrees above the boiling point of water where you live. The old sheet test works too: jelly drips from a cold spoon in two drops that run together and fall as one sheet.
- Work in small batchesDo not boil more than about 6 to 8 cups of juice at a time. Large volumes need such long boiling that the pectin breaks down and the jelly never sets.
- SealingJelly glasses of this period were typically sealed with a paraffin top, which is no longer considered a safe seal. Fill sterilised half-pint jars, leave 1/4 inch headspace, and process in a boiling water bath, or refrigerate the jelly and use it within a few weeks.
- Choosing fruitUse some slightly underripe apples along with the ripe ones. Pectin is highest just before full ripeness, and windfalls that have gone soft will set poorly.
Crab apples were common dooryard and wild trees in the northeastern United States, and their fruit was too sour and astringent to eat out of hand. That made them well suited to household jelly: high in pectin, high in acid, and, as the book says plainly, cheap. It belongs to a time when a cook judged a set by eye and spoon and chose fruit for its natural gelling power. The instruction to rub each apple until it shines rather than wash it, with washing permitted for small dusty fruit, suggests the tedium was not always thought worth it.