Valerie King

A Season of Mists and Cooking Apples

Whatever else autumn brings - colder weather, warmer clothes, hearty casseroles, it also brings a wonderful bounty of crisp and juicy home-grown apples, all bursting with flavour. Many people are lucky enough to have their own trees – and in some cases orchards – and spend the first few weeks of the season cooking for the freezer, stewing apples for pies, crumbles and puddings – the fruits first gurgling and then fluffing up in saucepans up and down the land.

People not lucky enough to have their own fruit trees may need to cook fewer apples but, given that now is also the time to start thinking about mincemeat for Christmas, they will doubtless be buying and using cooking apples in larger quantities over the next few weeks than they might through the rest of the year.

I have already made heroic quantities of mincemeat (and will be tackling the puddings and cakes over the course of the next few weeks).

I have also found something to do with the apple peels and cores that mount up in a browning heap all over the work surface before the annual grating marathon takes place. I'm going to give them to people as Christmas presents. Whilst part of me dearly wishes to scatter them over my friends' kitchen floors with a message attached saying "A very festive season to you all from Tracy Emin", I have on balance decided against this course of action in favour of making apple stock.

Put all the peels and cores from a few pounds of apples into a saucepan large enough to hold them comfortably and cover them with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for two hours. Leave to cool then strain overnight either through a jelly bag if you have one or, if not, a piece of muslin in a nylon sieve or plastic colander. Next morning you will have a quantity of blush-tinted apple juice absolutely bursting with pectin and a sieve full of pulp. You now have the makings of any amount of differently-flavoured jellies and butters.

I have made the following, each in a ratio of 2 pints of apple stock to 2lbs of granulated sugar (plus the juice of a lemon for flavour and a knob of butter to help reduce foaming), although as long as you use 1lb sugar per pint of liquid you can make any amount you like:

Herb and Pink Peppercorn Jelly

  • 2 tsp dried mixed herbs
  • 4 tsp dried parsley
  • 1 jar pink peppercorns (strictly speaking Baies de Rose) in brine

As long as you use the brined variety, the corns should be soft enough to leave whole, but you can crush them lightly in a pestle and mortar or with the end of a rolling-pin if you like. Add all the above ingredients to the apple stock and sugar, along with the lemon juice and butter. Let everything melt and bring to a boil. Boil hard for about five minutes and try for a set. Once the mixture starts forming 'clots' when you hold up a wooden spoon you have stirred into the pan, the jelly will set. Pour carefully into sterilised and warm jars. Leave for half an hour or so, then stir each pot carefully to distribute the flavourings, which may have floated to the surface, much as strawberries can when jam making. Once the herbs and corns are suspended in the jelly, leave well alone and pot up with wax discs and covers when completely cold. I find the best thing to stir with is the rounded end of a skewer.

This makes a delicious and unusual accompaniment to terrines, most game dishes and cold meats. It is also spectacularly pretty and if you can bear to give it away, makes a lovely present.

You could use green, brined peppercorns instead of the pink, if you prefer. Either of them has the advantage of providing a crunch of piquancy in a sweet jelly, but without the side effect of blowing your head off.

If you like to live dangerously, you could substitute finely-shredded chillies for the peppercorns.

If you want a little heat, but nothing as serious as chillies, you could substitute chopped stem ginger – I've made a ginger and lychee jelly that went very nicely with a game pie.

Tea Jellies

Another product that has become widely available in recent times is fruit tea in a variety of flavours. I have found that adding a box of fruit-tea bags to a 2 pint quantity of the apple jelly and letting them 'brew' in the boiling stage, then straining them out before potting, makes a delicately-scented and flavoured jelly that is quite intriguing. I usually break the contents of two of the teabags into the jelly to allow flecks of actual tea to appear – these add to the look without producing a 'chewing' jelly. Again, I give them a stir when they've been potted up to distribute the tea, then cover when cold. Most teas will produce a jelly that is golden in colour although the raspberry and blackcurrant-flavoured teas will provide more of a pinkish tinge.

Having dealt with the apple stock, you can now apply yourself to the pulp that has collected in your jelly bag or muslin.

Apple Butters

Push as much of the pulp through a nylon sieve as you can manage. This is curiously satisfying work and towards the end much help can be given by using a lemon-reamer to assist with pressing the last of the gubbins through – (they're very useful for sieving soup, too, or when pressing raspberries for a coulis).

Use 1lb sugar to 1lb pulp, adding the juice of a lemon and a knob of butter as before. Gently melt the sugar into the apple pulp, bring to the boil and – given that the mixture is much thicker – you should find that when you draw a wooden spoon through the mixture and you can see the bottom of the saucepan, the apple butter is ready for potting. A word of caution here though – being so much thicker the mixture needs regular stirring, or it can stick to the pan and burn. Do be careful when doing this – apple butter can produce air pockets, rather like smallish mud pools. Stirring often is the way to avoid hot apple splashes.

Apple butter on its own is delicious served as a conserve or with cheese.

Even more delicious is Muffin Butter, the basic apple mixture to which you add your choice of spices – cinnamon, mixed spice and a pinch of ground cloves makes the most gloriously rich and Christmassy conserve, particularly delicious, as its name implies, on hot toasted-and-buttered muffins.

A basket containing some Muffin Butter, together with a jar of mincemeat, one of the herb and pepper jelly, and a fruit tea jelly would make a handsome gift for anyone with a sweet tooth and an inclination to try new flavours.

back to top