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Crab Apple Jelly
Wash and quarter large Siberian crabs, but do not core, cover to the depth of an inch or two with cold water, and cook to a mush; pour into a coarse cotton bag or strainer, and when cool enough, press or squeeze hard, to extract all the juice. Take a piece of fine Swiss muslin or crinoline, wring out of water, spread over a colander placed over a crock, and with a cup dip the juice. slowly in, allowing plenty of time to run through; repeat this process twice, rinsing out the muslin frequently. Allow the strained juice of four lemons to a peck of apples, and three quarters of a pound of sugar to each pint of juice. Boil the juice from ten to twenty minutes; while boiling sift in the sugar slowly, stirring constantly, and boil five minutes longer. This is generally sufficient, but it is always safer to "try it," and ascertain whether it will "jelly." This makes a very clear, sparkling jelly.-Mrs. Carot Gaytes, Riverside, Ill.
A straightforward long-boil jelly that relies entirely on the fruit's own pectin, which crab apples supply in abundance. The original assumes you know how to test a set and how to seal the jars, so those are the gaps worth filling.
- The hinge: test the set, don't trust the clockThe stated "ten to twenty minutes" plus five is a rough guide, not a rule. Cook to 220F (8F above the boiling point of water at your altitude), or use the cold-plate test: a spoonful on a chilled saucer should wrinkle when pushed after a minute in the freezer.
- A peckA peck of apples is roughly 10 to 12 lb. With crab apples that yields something in the region of 6 to 8 pints of juice, so scale the four lemons accordingly if you are working with a smaller batch.
- Siberian crabsMalus baccata and its hybrids, small hard cherry-sized crab apples. Any tart crab apple works; the uncored fruit is deliberate, since the cores, pips and skins carry most of the pectin. Slightly underripe fruit sets better than fully ripe.
- Sugar ratioThree-quarters of a pound of sugar per pint of juice is about 1 3/4 cups sugar to 2 cups juice, a fairly lean ratio by modern standards. It will set, but expect a longer boil than a 1:1 jelly.
- Swiss muslin and crinolineBoth are simply fine open-weave cloth. A doubled layer of damp cheesecloth or a purpose-made jelly bag does the same job. Wringing the cloth out in water first stops it soaking up juice.
- Squeezing versus clarityThe instruction to press hard and then re-strain three times is the period compromise between yield and clarity. If you want the "sparkling" result promised, let the first extraction drip unpressed and reserve the squeezed juice for a second, cloudier batch.
- Cook to a mushExpect 20 to 30 minutes of simmering for the fruit to collapse. Water only to a depth of an inch or two above the fruit, as the recipe says; more water means more boiling down later and a duller flavour.
- SealingThe recipe says nothing about putting the jelly up. Period jellies were often poured into tumblers and covered with paraffin or papers; that method is no longer considered sound. Ladle into hot sterilised jars and process in a boiling-water bath according to current canning guidance, or simply refrigerate and use within a few weeks.
Crab apple jelly earned its place in nineteenth-century cookbooks because it needed nothing that commercial pectin later replaced: the fruit is high in both acid and pectin, so juice and sugar alone will set reliably. Powdered and liquid pectins did not reach American kitchens until the early twentieth century, which is why a book like this one gives such careful attention to testing whether the boil will "jelly." The Siberian crab named here was planted widely across the upper Midwest for its hardiness through severe winters, and its fruit is too sour and astringent to be much eaten out of hand, so it went mostly into jelly, preserves and pickles. The attribution to Mrs. Carot Gaytes of Riverside, Illinois, is characteristic of this family of cookbooks, which were assembled largely from contributed household recipes and printed the contributor's name and town as a mark of authority.