This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! I recently was able to get half a bushel of gigantic Honey Crisp Apples, grown in Utah. I decided to can Red Hot Cinnamon Apple Rings but the apples were so big they wouldn't fit into my jars as a ring and I had to half them. But, they still look beautiful. When I can apples or make pies, I always feel a little bit bad about throwing away the peels and scraps. We hate to waste things around here. Then, I found out that you can make apple jelly out of them! Of course, I had to give it a try! As I researched recipes, I found that some recipes used pectin and others did not because apples are naturally high in pectin you may be able to boil the jelly long enough to thicken it without adding additional pectin. I opted to use pectin because since it was the first time I was making it, I didn't want to take the chance of not getting a set. Well, the jelly still didn't set as firmly as I had hoped even though i also boiled it much longer than I normally would, so it is a good thing I did add the pectin. At first I thought it wasn't going to gel at all, but jelly, unlike jam, will set up as it gets colder and I was happy to get a bit of a gel by the next morning. There could be a few reasons why my gel was softer and I need to experiment with these reasons the next time I try it:
When I make updates to the recipe, I'll let you know. Additionally, if you would like to replace the water with apple juice, that is an option! On the bright side, even if the jelly is thin, it will still be great on pancakes or to glaze meat or to add to apple pie filling. And look what a pretty color it has! Because I had a bit of the Red Hot liquid in mine, that definitely helped with the color. But I also read that depending on the variety of apple you are using, the color will vary. One recipe I read said that Jonathan apples are great for adding the red color to the jelly. After cooking the peels, you will see that the color is all out of the peels and transferred into the juice. This is what my juice looked like after straining out the juice from the pulp: The color of this jelly is so pretty, it would make a really beautiful gift this Christmas! When I woke up this morning and found a bit of a gel, I was so happy! So, I made some Bannock to try it out on, which made my husband very happy! The Bannock was warm, so of course, the jelly melted right away, but you can still see the beautiful color and the taste was terrific! My husband went back for seconds! Oh! And one more great thing about this recipe for Apple Scrap Jelly is that it makes a lot of jelly jars full of jelly! I was able to get 10 jars! (That number includes the jelly crock you can see in the above photo! It was full to the top! ) I love the satisfaction of using every bit of my apple purchase without waste. It makes me feel like I am getting my money's worth and I feel so accomplished to be able to feed my family by preserving produce by canning! Be sure to let me know if you have ever tried to make Apple Scrap Jelly and if you have any tips for me to get a little stiffer gel. I'd love to hear your comments! You can click on the recipe below to print!
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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. I have used Tupperware my entire married life. Not only that, my mom used it as well. I still have pieces of Tupperware that I purchased or earned before I was married. I've been married for almost 43 years. I've used other brands of storage containers that have been fine, but I have to say that I believe that nothing really can compete with Tupperware when it comes to keeping food fresh, looking nice in my pantry, keeping out weevils and being easily portable.
Recently, someone mentioned to me that they hadn't known or seen a Tupperware Dealer in a long time. I was surprised because just a couple of years ago I hosted an online party and earned a ton of new products that I love. So, without being sponsored or anything, I just thought I would share with you my go-to Tupperware Products that I use regularly. I will be linking the products to my friend Caroline who is a Tupperware Dealer!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support.
When I started canning my pears last week, my son mentioned that a pear sauce, like apple sauce, might be a good idea. He also recalled this recipe when I canned apple slices with Red Hots. I started thinking about that and decided it might be delicious to make a combination of those two ideas with my pears!
I have made apple butter and pear butter in my crockpot, and I thought that might be a great idea for this Pear Sauce. I also decided that adding some dried cranberries (Craisins) to the mix might be a great little burst of flavor. I was right! I first rehydrated my cranberries with water and reserved a little of the water to add juice to the sauce. I later thought that I could have used apple juice to rehydrate them and that would have been a good idea as well. (If you try it, let me know how it goes.)
This recipe doesn't take a lot of sugar. My pears were nice and ripe and sweet. Plus, the Red Hots add sugar as well as the cinnamon flavor. The pumpkin pie spice also adds cinnamon and other spices contained therein, such as ginger, nutmeg and cloves. The aroma in the house while the sauce was cooking was heavenly.
I canned mine into 4 12 oz and 1 pint jar, which left enough for my husband and I to enjoy some while it was still warm! It was a rainy day, so the mixture of watching the rain and enjoying this warm, Spicy Craisin Pear Sauce really made it feel like Fall for a moment. (The next day our temperatures were back over 100 degrees!)
I've been trying out a steam canner that my friends Anita and Rhonda have been using and it was fantastic to use. It uses a lot less water, heats up to temperature sooner and is so easy to use. This sauce in these smaller jars stayed in for 20 minutes. Everything sealed and I am so pleased with the results. I hope that you enjoy this recipe as well!
More Pear Recipes:
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. Here is a true story, when I was a kid, probably around 12 or 13 years old, I had a job picking figs.
I grew up in the central valley of California, and there were many people who had fig trees. One family that we knew needed to hire help to pick their figs, so my brother and I got jobs. If you don't know, figs are picked by harvesting them off of the ground. A tractor with a grabbing mechanism would go to the trees and grab them and shake them. The figs would fall to the ground and the pickers go and start throwing figs into their buckets. Well, at least that was how it was done when I was a kid back in the day. You had to crouch down and fill your bucket as fast as you could because you were paid by the bucket load of figs. About 10 cents per bucket back then, as a matter of fact! It was hard dusty work and by the end of my first day, I was sick. So, my employment didn't last very long. The funny thing about that story is, I don't remember eating a lot of figs as a kid. Sometimes we had Fig Newtons, and I think that once in awhile we had some dried figs, but they weren't a major part of our diet. That is why when I was able to order some figs from our local wholesale produce distributor, I was anxious to get some and see what I could do with this funny looking fruit, the fig! |
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
March 2024
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