Last week I made & canned 3.5 batches of Apple Pie Jam and planned to write about it. But the problem is that on days that I can jam, I am exhausted from it and have no energy, creative or otherwise, when I’m done.
I took a whole extra day off work just to can because I had so much I needed to do on my “weekend” that I could not find time and once you have ingredients the clock is ticking. I am extremely privileged to be able to do this. I think after 2020 most people have a bit more understanding and sympathy for the difficulties of being a business owner. But I’m not about to act like there aren’t some great perks including getting to take a day off because you want/need to.
Of course, I’d rather not. Because taking an extra day off means I am too busy. I have definitely over-committed myself in a few areas. I am trying to fix that but it turns out that if you volunteer for something for 1.5 years it can take a lot of work to UN-volunteer.
Anyway. Taking an extra day off, plus some extra projects, plus trying to unload some other projects, has added up to feeling very…off. I’m off schedule. I’m off communication. I’m off eating regularly.
And there is only one real solution. Get. Back. On.
Get sleep. Exercise. Cross things off my to do list. Make calls. Send emails. Move forward.
To that end…
I made the Apple Pie Jam recipe from “The All New Ball Book of Canning And Preserving”.
Makes about 5 250mL Jars (1/2 pint or 1 cup jars)
-8 cups diced Granny Smith apples
-2 cups apple cider (recipe suggests juice or cider)
-2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
-3 tablespoons Classic, powder pectin
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon cardamom (recipes suggests allspice or cardamom)
-1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (recipe suggests nutmeg or ginger)
-2 cups sugar
Thoughts on this recipe….
If someone is interested in trying low-sugar pectin, I think this is a good recipe to experiment with because the amount of sugar is already (comparatively) low. I
The recipe suggests 8 cups of Granny Smith apples is about 6 apples. Maybe my apples were extra big, but it took more like 4 apples. I lined up 20 apples before I started, planning to make 3 batches. As I mentioned, I made 3.5 batches and I only used 18 apples. Not a bad problem to have, except I overbought (online ordering) apples already. It’s also possible I did not dice the apples as small as the recipe assumes to use all the apples. But I also did not have any problem with the apples cooking down, which I would expect if my pieces were too large.
I say that I made 3.5 batches. My goal was to triple the recipe so I started out by making a 1.5 batch. When I saw that 1) it wasn’t overloading my cooking pot and 2) I had plenty of apples, I then doubled the recipe for my 2nd batch.
My 1.5 batch yielded 9 250mL jars.
My double batch yielded 11 250mL jars. OK, technically it yielded 9 250mL jars + 2 cups that I stuck in the fridge because by then I absolutely could not stand the idea of going through the whole processing for just 2 more jars.
I used some of the fridge jam in place of applesauce in a zucchini bread recipe and it worked great.
I think this is a great recipe for someone new to canning. Only one major ingredient, but you get a sophisticated taste from adding the spices. Using pectin with apples pretty much ensures you will have a great jam as apples are high in pectin to begin with. The addition of the lemon juice keeps the acid level high which can be reassuring if you are new to canning.
In Progress Jess 