Autumn is here isn't it?! Where has the time gone. Wasn't it just last week when we were in birthday mode around here? We have three September birthdays which makes the month of going back to school, that much more fun and hectic. As I opened our last jar of apple jelly from my pantry recently, made two years ago, I knew what we were going to do with our apples this year. Make more jelly!
I looked back through my blog and realized I have never explained how I make apple jelly. There is a quick post about it here, but no mention of how I made it. So today we are. I've done it two different ways. The old way was to peel and cut the apples and boil them, drain the juice (you need 6 cups of juice), then add 1/4 cup of sugar with a pack of Sure-jell pectin, bring to a boil, then add the remainder of the sugar (about 6.75 cups).
This year I came up with a new way. I first juiced the raw apples with my Breville Juicer (lots of instagram photos floating around of that brilliant machine!). All the apples in that pic rendered 6 cups of juice. What I love about juicing the apples, is that it is pure apple juice, not watered down from cooking the applies, and its quick, no peeling involved! The juice then goes into a pot, brought to a boil, then the same process of 1/4 cup of sugar and box of Sure-Jell pectin is added. Once that comes to a boil, I added the 6 3/4 cups of sugar (7 in all). After checking the gel consistency, I ended up adding almost the whole second box of pectin to get it the way I like my jelly, not too firm, and not runny. Then I scooped it into sterilized jars, and sealed them. This batch tasted a tad too sweet for me, so I'm making another batch using 5 cups of sugar to see if I like it better. Either way, they will both be delicious, fresh from the farm to my kitchen to be stored and opened and enjoyed for many seasons to come.
{The two jars with white tops went straight into the fridge to be eaten this week with my family, they are not properly sealed for storage.}
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