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Crab Apple Jelly and Jam
Mrs. Ludlam.
Remove stems and blossoms from the apples; let them scald, and pour off the first water; next put them in plenty of water and let them cook slowly; as they begin to soften dip off the juice for jelly, straining it through flannel. One pound of juice to a pound of sugar for jelly. Next add more water; let apples stew very soft; strain through a sieve, which takes out cores and seeds; to this pulp add brown sugar, pound for pound; it needs careful cooking and stirring.
A two-for-one recipe: the first, lightly extracted juice becomes jelly, and the softened pulp left behind becomes jam. Crab apples are high enough in pectin and acid that neither needs commercial pectin.
- The hinge: dip the juice earlyThe jelly juice is taken off as the apples begin to soften, before they collapse. Juice drawn at that stage is clear and sets firmly; if you wait until the fruit is mush, the liquid clouds and you have jam-in-waiting instead.
- "One pound of juice to a pound of sugar"This recipe weighs the juice rather than measuring it. A pound of apple juice is roughly two cups; a pound of granulated sugar is closer to 2¼ cups, so the two are near but not identical by volume. Weighing is still the more reliable method.
- Scalding and pouring off the first waterThe recipe does not say why; the likely purpose is to rinse the skins and take off some astringency. Any pectin lost with it argues for keeping the scald brief — a minute or two in boiling water, then drain.
- Straining through flannelA doubled square of cheesecloth or a jelly bag does the same job. Let it drip; squeezing or pressing the bag forces fine pulp through and clouds the jelly.
- Knowing when it is doneThe recipe gives no time because the cook judged by eye. Jelly sets at about 220F at sea level, or roughly 8F above the boiling point of water where you are, or when a spoonful wrinkles on a chilled plate. Jam is done when a spoon drawn through the pan leaves a track that closes slowly.
- Brown sugar in the jamPeriod brown sugar was less refined and more variable than today's. Light brown sugar gives the closest result; dark brown will dominate the fruit. The jam scorches easily because of the pulp, so use a wide heavy pan and stir constantly, as instructed.
- SealingThe recipe gives no sealing instructions at all. For shelf storage now, fill clean hot half-pint jars, leave a quarter-inch of headspace, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Otherwise refrigerate and use within a month.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities, so the yield depends entirely on how much fruit you start with and how much juice you draw off before stewing the rest for jam.
Crab apples were a fixture of American dooryards and fencerows long before dessert apples were widely grafted, and their fruit is too sour and hard to eat out of hand — which is exactly what makes it valuable in a jelly pot. Crab apples are unusually rich in both pectin and acid, the two things a jelly needs to set, and before commercial pectin was sold (Certo appeared in the United States in the early twentieth century) they were often cooked alongside weaker fruits to stiffen them. The double use here, jelly from the first thin juice and jam from the exhausted pulp, is characteristic of the thrift running through The Home Cook Book, a Chicago community cookbook whose recipes were contributed and signed by named local women; nothing that could be strained, sieved and sugared was thrown out. The section heading, "Our Susan's Opinion of a Kitchen," belongs to one of the book's linking essays rather than to Mrs. Ludlam's recipe itself.