What kind of apples do you use? Regular or cooking?
Regular. If I remember correctly, they were some that the future in-laws gave me from one of their friend's trees. The apples were nobbly and had some spots, and the future in-laws are used to pristine supermarket apples and frankly, a bit scared of them so they thought I could figure out some way to use them, ha! But frankly, I'd just use whatever you've got. With all the cooking down and spicing you're throwing in, it's not going to make much difference anyway.
Oh and if we're talking apple preserves, I've got THE best Apple Jelly (in the American sense) recipe out of my Mennonite Cookbook. It's just apples and sugar and that's it, and it is SO good. FFIL will do just about anything to get a jar (he does a bunch of DIY for us so that's his usual reward).
Apple Jelly
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Wash apples and cut into quarters (keep the peel on, that's where the pectin is!). Put apples in a large saucepan. Add enough water until it can be seen through pieces of fruit. Cover and cook slowly until apples are soft. Pour into a muslin bag (I use an old, clean piece of bedsheet - make SURE it doesn't stink like detergent or fabric softener though or your jelly will, too!) and squeeze through all the juice (this will really work your arm muscles). Measure the juice and bring to the boil. You wash a 4 cups juice to 3 cups sugar ratio. Add sugar gradually and cook rapidly until it beginsto thicken. Have a saucer in the freezer and when the jelly is set, drops of it will "wrinkle" on the frozen saucer and you know it's done. Pour into hot jelly glasses and seal.
And since I've got the cookbook out, here's the apple butter (small amount - the large amount recipe uses 20 gallons of apple cider and 15 pounds of sugar!
). I just roughly used the ingredient list to get the spicing right. Oh, and cloudy Copella apple juice is a great substitute for apple cider in this.
Apple Butter (small amount)
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2 quarts apple cider
4 quarts apples
2 cups sugar
2 cups dark corn syrup
1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon or 1/4t oil of cinnamon
Boil the cider until reduced to 1 quart. Pare the apples, core, and slice into thin pieces. Add apples to cider and cook slowly until the mixture begins to thicken. Stir frequently. Add sugar, syrup, and cinnamon. Continue to cook until a little of the butter, when cooled on a plate, is of a good consistency to spread. Yields 5 to 6 pints.
So yeah, this recipe is way fiddly so I just did what I said in the earlier post (I think I added a little bit of ground clove and maybe nutmeg in there though too) with a mix of Copella apple juice and water with the apples and brown sugar and blackstrap and it came out great.
