Well.....I couldn't be happier. THIS recipe will for sure go into my B&B log of recipes. I must remember to buy a place with a crab apple tree or scout out the neighbourhood first, before purchasing. If I could bottle this scent and imprint the memories that the aroma evokes...I would. Believe me, your home will fill with delightful scents and memories of autumn...it is well worth the time and wee effort to make.
Not able to improve upon a timeless recipe...this recipe can be found in the Mennonite Treasury of Recipes @1962. The only changes I made was to split the recipe into 1/5th (but I will give you the whole recipe) and increased the spices. The spice amount noted for this large batch I am about to give to you...can easily be used in 1/5 the recipe...as I made. So feel free to double, or quadruple the spices. Good luck and enjoy!
Ingredients
10 lbs crab apples
7 1/2 cups white sugar
4 cups water
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
10 lbs crab apples
7 1/2 cups white sugar
4 cups water
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Wash crab apples, remove the stems and blossom ends. Place in large heavy pot on stove. Add water and cover.
Cook until soft, about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
Put through a coarse sieve. I don't own any such thing so with 1/5th of the recipe it was no big deal...if you are big time into preserves etc...you might want to get a proper sieve...my bad wrist was nearly done for in just this small amount.
Return to pot, add sugar and spices. Cook slowly until thick, about 2 hours....yep...2 hours....and your house will love you for it!Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal at once.
Process the Apple Butter according to safe canning procedures.
Please follow the link for all canning instructions here.
This looks delicious - thanks for passing along the recipe.
ReplyDeleteYou've been very busy, Trish! I admire your enthusiasm to try so many things after a long week of work! This all looks so good . . . and great pictures!!
ReplyDeleteThis is delicious.....I couldn't stop my family from having a bowl full before I was able to cook it for 2 hours....cant wait to see how the apple butter is (what's left of it) when it finishes cooking.....
ReplyDeleteThis does look and sound delicious. Questions from a city girl new to canning...are Crab apples what we city folk call Granny Smith apples??? Also, if one cooks the food first, does one not need to cook in a water bath??? Thanks so much for this site. I was looking for a way to can my husbands "HOT" salsa recipe and found this site.
ReplyDeleteCrab apples are small very tart apples, generally about the size of apricots. You can eat them straight off the tree, but a lot of people find them too sour. And I don't really know about canning, since I haven't done it before, but I believe it's to be sure that no bacteria has entered the food after it's cooled from the cooking, which shortens the shelf life. So it probably depends on how fast you intend to use it.
DeleteThis recipe looks awesome, but what do you eat this with?
DeleteYou can eat it on corn bread, biscuits, pancakes or anything else you'd put jam on!
DeleteI made the full recipe, but doubled the spices like you suggested. It looks and tastes amazing! Thank you for the recipe. My batch made 9 half pint jars.
ReplyDelete-Wildwolf7
Thanks for posting! We have a fridge full of crabapples from our friend's tree-- it is a rainy day in Oregon and I am about to embark on a crab apple-butter making adventure!
ReplyDeleteGreat recipes! And your blog is beautiful! Can't wait to see new posts!
ReplyDeleteI have a load of two kinds of crab apples: yellow about the size of ping pong balls, and red the size of small marbles. I made a full batch. I did not trim the blossom ends, and it was no problem because I ran the cooked apples through a spiral strainer with the coarsest cone. I substituted honey for some of the sugar and fresh ground the spices. I reduced the butter in a crock pot. Very tasty!
ReplyDeleteI took an afternoon off of work to try this recipe out...needless to say, my husband then decided he was willing to pick Crab Apples daily if I would continue to make the butter! A delicious recipe! I boiled my apples in a Vanilla Rooibos tea I get through Let's Do Tea and in the end, I have a beautiful red crab apple butter that has received nothing but RAVE reviews! Thanks for sharing this fabulous recipe!
ReplyDeleteI double the spices and it is too spiced. Tastes like spice butter :)Would recommend keeping the spices as is and adding only as you need to.
ReplyDeleteso good, even before I added spices! my 2 yr old daughter chose to eat this over ice cream :)
ReplyDeletemmmmmmmm... your recipe was the best!. i love to cook and you gave me another good recipe to bake for my familly thanks!!!
ReplyDeletemmmmmmm... your recipe was the bast! thanks!!!! :) :P :O :D
ReplyDeletethis looks like the best crab apple recipe I have seen so far, search far and wide. Also, I absolutely love the pic with those darling aprons on. I am saving this website and I think it will be one of my favs.
ReplyDeleteMaking my crab apple butter right now. Yum! My kitchen smells wonderful. I didn't want to double the spices and have them too strong so I just added a lil more then the recipe says.
ReplyDeleteA great yummy use for crab apples. Thanks!
MeanJean
I just made this the other day. I made half the recipe and so used half the spices as well. I recommend keeping to the original amount of spice. The result was an amazing red, lightly spiced, and with lots of apple flavor. The other thing I did since I don't have a food mill is cut the apples in half when I cooked them. This made the mashing part much easier. Definitely a recipe I will do again.
ReplyDeleteI just made this yesterday and the flavour and consistency is wonderful! However, I'm disappointed with one aspect of it: the innermost bits of the crabapple (that houses the seeds) are very woody and they did not lose their woodiness even after the CAB was done. So now it feels like I'm eating splinters when I have some CAB :-( As a departure from your recipe, I pureed half the crabapples after cooking them but before adding the sugar, and I think this took care of some of the woody-innards issue, but I am wondering if you (or any of your readers) can suggest a way to deal with this problem so that next time I can make CAB that has a non-splinter-like consistency. Thanks so much for posting the recipe :-)
ReplyDeleteWow, this recipe sound delicious, will have to try it, but I was wondering if you happen to know of any old time recipes for canned Candied Crab Apples.
ReplyDeleteThis recipe is smelling wonderful! I don't have a food mill, so I had to press it all through a sieve - not fun! But my toddler enjoyed a large bowl of unsweetened applesauce during this step, so it was worth it. Unfortunately, a few of the hard seed shells snuck through. It's getting late, and my crab apple butter is reducing as we speak, so I switched it to my crock pot so I have to stir it less frequently and so it won't spit at me while I try to stir it! (It is very thick already.) Have you ever tried the final step in the crock pot? Also, I reduced the amount of sugar (2 cups for 10 lbs of apples) since I'm not going to be canning it and it's mainly for my toddler. It tastes good already, so I'm crossing my fingers it only gets better from here!
ReplyDeleteI'm a dude and I love to try out new recipes. This one is great! I made it last night and served it this morning. It took several house and lots of slicing, but worth it. Thank you for this great and easy recipe. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI made a half batch for the first time last year and have been waiting for my crab-apples to ripen this year to make a full batch! I used the spice measurements in the recipe (so halved them for my half batch)and found it was perfect! It is a bit of work to get the apples ready but so worth it. If you haven't tried this recipe you should!
ReplyDeleteThis recipe looks awesome and I'm hoping to make it today. I just have one question: I have two heaping bowls of chopped apples (cut into fairly large chunks) but I have no scale. Can anyone offer advice on approximately how many cups of chopped apples would equal the 10lbs in the recipe?
ReplyDeleteI found myself with about 30 pounds of beautiful Hyslop crabapples, so I've been making jelly. I wondered why some recipes say to remove the stem and blossom ends?? I followed your lead, Trish, and just cut a large slice from top and bottom to make the process go more easily. (also, I didn't mind the wasted ends because I had more fruit than I had time to preserve.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the excellent recipe and photos. MGCC is a terrific resource for me; I appreciate your sharing.
So what do you use if you don't have a sieve? I'm a little confused at this step. How can i avoid getting seeds into the mixture that i want to use? And do i end up with only the juice? Someone please help me, as i have 20 lbs of crab apples to use up right away and this recipe sounds really good!! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteGo to a Kitchen supply store and buy your self a food mill. It will be so much easier than trying to push it through a sieve. 20 lbs is a lot and it will be worth the investment.
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