Crabapples. Bah humbug! For most of my life I assumed this tree existed to give parents a chore to punish their kids with: pick up the ugly, inedible apples.
Out in Weber Country we have two beautiful crabapple trees directly behind the house, the blossoms are lovely in the spring. And this year I noticed HOLY MOLY THOSE APPLES ARE HUGE! A little googling and I realized I can actually use these bad boys—they aren’t poisonous after all! (Oh the things we grow up to believe.)
With nary an effort, I pulled off a basket of apples in no time. Big ones too!
I decided I’m going to boil the skins/not so nice pieces down to make Apple Pectin. Because if I’m gonna become an expert jelly making fiend…HELLO FREE PECTIN?!
The rest of the apples I decided to make a crabapple sauce to preserve. Worse case scenario it will taste AMAZING over a pork roast this winter, right?
It turned out pretty good, but very, very sticky. Also, using the blender to smash the skins, um…yeah. Messy.
Add four jars of crabapple sauce and three jars of pectin to the growing canning pantry!
Are you sure those are crabapples rather than sour apples? I mean you can make pectin with either, but those look more like apples to me.