Harold's Crabapple Gelatin Sauce! Weird but Good!

So when my dad and I got back from Watchung, we picked a bunch of crabapples from the backyard. In order to make....

CRABAPPLE SAUCE!

Here's the finished product:

Crabapple sauce is naturally a beautiful blood-red color!

1) Pick the crabapples. Yep that was obvious, but it is the first step, so there you go.

2) Remove the stems and leaves, then wash them. We washed them in small batches so we could pick them over carefully and trim out the worm holes and any rotted parts:

unprocessed crabapples

3) Ripe crab apples should smell strongly of fresh apples. Depending on the breed they may be reddish like ours. According to dad, some breeds ripen up in august, others as late as October. If you aren't sure just taste one to see if they are good....

*Just kidding that's not a real step, just wanted to see if I could trick anybody into biting into one of these suckers! Even though they smell better than good, they are extremely tart! It wont hurt you to try them (I did), but.... unless you are a lunatic you wont enjoy the flavor. 

The real 3) Core all the crap abbles, make sure you remove any wormy parts... We found the bugs seemed to go for the seeds, so you might find the same. 

Because they are so small you might find it easier to simply cut away the usable flesh of the apple, by cutting chunks away from the core and then throwing out the rest.

The only stuff that should go in the pan is the skins and the flesh- no core, no seeds, no stems.

Crap apples, cored and ready to cook!

4) Squeeze a couple lemons over the apples, and start letting them simmer. You don't need to add any water if its on a low heat setting, with the lid on it. 

5) Seasoning! Throw in three or four sticks of cinnamon and let them cook. Sprinkle in some ground cloves and nutmeg too, to taste. As it cooks it will begin to smell exactly like a hot apple pie!

Seasoned crabapples cooking on low heat

6) Sugar! You wont be able to eat much of this apple sauce if you dont sweeten it! We used maybe half a coup of honey and 1.5 cups of sugar... Didn't measure, but just do it to taste.

The sugar will dissolve very fast when you stir it in. 

7) Let the whole thing cook until it gets thick. Dad explained that crab apples are naturally high in pectin and that a lot of people use them for jelly and jam. He uses them for apple sauce because the as they cook down the pectin causes the apple sauce to thicken up nicely (he said it also thickens into a gelatin texture as it cools)

8) Once it has thickened up quite a lot, spoon in a couple tablespoons of butter! It gives it an unbelievable richness. 

9)Plate and eat! Dad likes to garnish the dish with slivers of candied ginger... It gives a nice little spice and texture every other bite, like so:

In case you forgot what it looked like in picture 1... 

The flavor is very much like a cross between apple sauce, and apple pie- but a lot more tart, almost like it contains cranberries (but it doesn't). Perfect if you are already starting to pine for fall weather and autumn spices! 

SERVING SUGGESTIONS: Eat it hot, spooned over some vanilla ice cream- life changing... or let it get nice and cold and it will gel up, to the point it will taste like a gelatin dessert. 

The color is so vibrant that it would be fun to eat even if it didn't taste great!

Enjoy! let me know how it turns out. If you like it, you can thank of Harold Maria!

PS- check out Dad's other garden recipes!