Apple Jelly

Can you say...YUMMMY!

Apple jelly is one of (many) favorite jellies of mine.

But its touchy.

For instance. This year, I made 2 batches because the first one didn't jell, so now we have a batch of apple syrup. Do any of you guys know if I can use this stuff in other apple recipes like bread and cookies such??

Anyway, to make apple jelly, you need 6lbs of apples washed and cored. (Or you can run to the store and get you 6 cups of apple juice and skip to the cooking the jelly part.)

Then put around an inch (per batch) of water in a big pot and throw them all in to boil. When they get soft, put them through a sieve or juicer of some sort to extract the juice. 

However, if you dont have a juicer, I run them through my Roma with the smallest screen to get a juice with a lot of apple meat in it. Just to break it down to the smallest form before I run it through my jelly strainer.

This is where I get excited for 2 reasons:

One...we are almost done with the prep work!!!
Two...because this step takes so looooonnngggggg.......I can sit down and surf Ralvery or Facebook and have a sandwich or watch tv or knit something.....(would love reviews of a juicer and suggestions for a certain brand.)

The strainer is in the middle, and the bowl to the right is the product from the Roma getting ready to be juiced, and the bowl on the left is whats left after its been juiced. I keep it to make fruit rollups. 

......I'll be back, im going to go eat a couple bratwurst leftover from last night while this is draining........ 

When you get all the juice out you can, get the "meat" out and put it in the bowl and set it somewhere out of the way, or if you don't want to make something out of it, toss it.

Wash the sack and run the juice through again, just to make sure its just apple juice. 

When you're done with that, measure out your juice to make sure you have 6 cups. Put it in the pot you used to cook the apples after it has been washed and gather this stuff. 

This is one box of pectin and 1/2 cup of sugar per batch. I'm making a triple batch today. 

Open the pectin and stir it in with the sugar. Set it aside but keep it handy. This is to make it easier for you to stir it in the juice. 

Now measure out the rest of the sugar and put it in a bowl and keep it handy. How much you say?? Well that depends on your apples. As a general rule: I use 7 total cups of sugar per batch in my jelly. If you have extra sweet apples that year, use less. Have a taste while your cutting them up to see. This year, mine aren't as sweet as past years so im going with the full 7 cups per batch. Keep in mind, you're using 1/2 a cup of that to stir the pectin up with. 

I suggest you go here, scroll down to step 7 and check out his chart. This will give you options for sweetener and measurements for each. While your at it. He has quite a bit more information and options on making apple jelly, so have a look at his recipe. He also has canning supplies for sale if you need any. 

So when you have your jars, lids and flats ready, get your waterbath canner going and turn on the heat on your pot and stir in your pectin mixture.  When the apple-pectin mix has reached a full boil, (the kind that cannot be stirred away), and add the rest of the sugar (or other sweetener), and then bring it back to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute. No less, just a little bit more if you have to. 

Put the jelly into prepared jars and adjust the lids. (I roped hubbs into helping this time) 

Put them in the canner for 10 mins and on the other side............

Straight out of the canner, this will look like apple juice. Give it 3 or 4 hours...you will see jelly, give it overnight and it should be ready to eat! 

Now where is my toast?? 

TTFN