Apple Jelly Recipe - Lost and Found

Growing up, we had two apple trees in our backyard. My dad’s mother lived with us at the time, and she would make everything imaginable from those apples. Pies, tarts, crisps, you name it. But what I remember most was the jelly. It was pink, because she cooked the apples with the peel still on. It was the only jelly I would eat (that brownish "stuff" in the grocery just looked too weird and unappetizing to me). She would make batches upon batches in glass jelly jars, storing them in the basement cupboards for use in the scores of PB&J sandwiches that we took in our lunchboxes.

Then, when I was nine, my grandmother suffered a debilitating stroke. Soon afterwards she moved to a nursing home where she could get the medical care she needed. Her speech was slurred and she could no longer write. She would never make another batch of jelly.

And I had never asked her to teach me how it was done.

I had long ago conceded that this would be another family heirloom lost to history (along with my great-great grandpa's prohibition-era beer recipe). But then, on Christmas day this past year, my sister and I each unwrapped a plain, white binder from our mother. Upon opening it, we found the following inscription:

“According to Webster’s New World Dictionary the word ‘recipe’ comes from Latin. It was several meanings. It means a formula for a medical prescription. It can mean a medicine made up according to such a formula. It means a list of materials and directions for preparing a dish or drink. It also means anything proposed as a remedy for doing something, or for producing a desired result. No matter how you define it, a recipe is a mixture of different things resulting in something to make you feel better, feel full, feel happy, even loved. Mix your recipes with care, share them, and celebrate.

Lovingly,

Mom”

This was followed by page upon page of family recipes accompanied by photos of our family celebrations over the years. Birthday parties, Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving meals, you name it. 

And there, on page nine, was the recipe for my grandma’s apple jelly. 

I've made apple jelly several times since rediscovering this recipe, and every time the taste of it brings a smile to my face. I close my eyes and I'm standing in our old kitchen on a cool autumn day. My grandma is cooking up the apples we collected from the backyard, and I can smell that delicious aroma.

Grandma Vedder’s Apple Jelly

Cook cored, cut-up red apples (not peeled) for ½ hour.

Strain through a cheesecloth.

Add ¾ cup sugar to 1 cup of juice.

Cook until it makes syrup.

Pour into hot jelly glasses.

Add paraffin and cover.*

*In place of paraffin, jars can be sealed using the water bath canning method for 10 minutes. 

Now, if only I could track down that beer recipe.

Thanks for stopping by!
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Shared at: The Prairie Homestead

Homemade Vanilla Extract

My first blog post comes at the end of the gardening season, so I will try to post summaries of some of this summer's gardening experiments (successful and otherwise) over the coming weeks. I'll start with the my most recent project: homemade vanilla extract.

Vanilla Extract
A few weeks ago I read about homemade vanilla extract, and thought to myself: "Self, that's a good idea!" So I scrounged around to find an empty jelly jar, as well as the better part of a bottle of vodka in the freezer. Great, all I still needed were vanilla beans. Several folks recommended buying in bulk online, but I wasn't ready to commit so soon. I figured I would get a handful of beans from the local spice store and try a small amount first. If it worked well, I would consider getting a larger amount at a better price. But for now, we'll start small. :-)

1 cup vodka (I used Skyye brand)
2 vanilla beans (Madagascar), cut to fit in the jar and sliced lengthwise

I mixed everything together and placed in the back of a cabinet about three weeks ago, so we're roughly halfway through the process. Of course, the longer it steeps the more intense the extract will be, but I'm using 6 weeks as my baseline. With a little luck, it should be ready just in time for some last-minute holiday baking.

Here's what it looked like after just two days.

The label you see in the picture is courtesy of the fine folks at "Of Course You Can! Sweet Preservation", which I also use to label my canning jars. It's a great help for me to see exactly when and what I canned (or in this case, when I started the project), and they are even easier to remove than even the "removable" labels that often come with packages of canning jars. To download this or one of their other lovely templates, simply go to: SweetPreservation.com/Labels-Crafts.

Thanks for reading!