Canned Apple Sauce & Apple Jelly

Yesterday I made homemade apple sauce, spiced apple jelly and apple mint jelly. I then canned them all. I ended up with about 8 quarts of apple sauce and 12 pints of apple jelly from a half bushel of apples.  I used all the cores and skins to make the jelly and ran out and picked fresh mint from my little herb garden to make apple mint jelly.
Below are my basic apple recipes and how I made them all.

APPLE SAUCE INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 a bushel of peeled, cored, and quartered apples (use a good cooking apples)
• 8 or so strips of lemon peel – use a potato peeler to strip 4 lengths
• Juice of one lemon, about 3-4 Tbsp
• 6 cinnamon sticks
• 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 2+ cups of water give or take depending on the consistency you like
• 1 teaspoon of salt (optional)

METHOD:

1. Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

2. Remove from heat. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon peels. Mash with potato masher or run through a Squeezo strainer. I bought a smaller one at Butler’s Orchard here in Montgomery County MD for about half the price of the ones in the link above.Ready to serve, either hot or refrigerated. Delicious with vanilla ice cream or vanilla yogurt.Freezes easily, lasts up to one year in a cold freezer or you can can it which is what I did.

Heat sauce to a boil, again stirring often to prevent sticking. Fill jars with hot applesauce leaving 1/2 inch head space. Wipe the rims clean, remove any air bubbles and place your sterile lids. For more details follow water bath canninginstructions. 

Process pints or quarts for 20 minutes.

APPLE JELLY INGREDIENTS:

Apple jelly just might be the quintessential preserve. It tastes great on toast or hot biscuits, serves as a glaze for tarts made from other apples or any other fruit, and just standing there in the jar, the sparkling amber gel is sheer beauty, like sunlight captured in a jar.  Note the following are all approximations below. I suggest you make single smaller batches,  which will make about 6 pint jars.

• 4 cups of apple juice from cooked down apples
• 1  cup of water
•  7 – 8 cups of sugar
• half to one whole lemon
• 6 tablespoons of pectin or a box of pectin
• Reuse and add the  six cinnamon sticks from the apple sauce when heating the jelly batch up
• Add about 10 cloves  or so and then skimmed them off before I put the jelly into jars.

For mint apply jelly,  I left out the previously mentioned cinnamon and cloves in this next batch.  Just before I made the next batch and while the apple sauce were processing in the canner, I ran outside and picked a cup of fresh mint. I then picked off the leaves, washed them and chopped the leaves  up and then added them to the batch of heating apple liquid. I then skimmed the leaves off before putting the jelly into the jelly jars.

1) Fill a heavy stockpot or large saucepan with cut up apples. Include the skins, the cores, and even the seeds. Barely cover the apples with water and then, over medium heat, bring the apples to a slow simmer.

2) Cook the apples 20-30 minutes, or until completely mushy, then pour the mush into a bowl lined with a special jelly bag, several layers of cheesecloth or a clean, flannel pillowcase. Hang the bag above the bowl. You may secure the bag by closing the top of it in a cabinet door above the bowl. Allow the juice to flow from the bag for several hours or overnight. Discard the solids.

3) Measure 4 cups of juice, water, and ¼ cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice into a large saucepan and, over high heat, bring it to a boil. Add the sugar to the boiling juice and cook it to a hard boil. When a clean metal spoon is dipped into the boiling liquid, it will run off in two distinct streams; but when the jelly is cooked, the two streams will come together. This joining of the streams is “the sheeting test,” and it occurs at 220 degrees. Cook the jelly until the sheeting test, or a thermometer indicates that it is ready then pour it into sterilized, half-pint jars and screw on the two-part lids.

4.) Process the sealed jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes then let them cool to room temperature. The jelly might take several hours to set. Store the jelly in a cool place like my canning shelves I made in the basement——->