Apple glut

Walking past the dentist in town on the way to a coastal bimble, we past a council maintianace man frantically picking up the apples that have dropped from a very fruitful russet on to the road and pavement. Being a russet the apples are soft sweet and very juicy, so hitting concrete was smashing the apples into a wasp fest and giving local children an autumn version of snowballs which they were gleefully throwing at each other. The dentist staff were feeling really menaced by this thoroughly lovely fruit, so the council caretaker was picking them up. He told us he juiced them at home and made cider with them for Christmas. So we asked him if could help clear the tree of fruit, we would pick them anyway as you dont need permission to pick fruit from the edge of a public right of way, but it meant we knew we weren't going to get moaned at by the dentist staff for standing in the middle of the road catching them. There is nothing more oppressive when exercising the common law right to forage than to have some busy body saying you cant do it there, when you know you can, but cant be arsed with the row.

So the next day we turn up equipt to forage as many apples as we can carry. We brought extendible tree loppers, not to cut anything it is just the hook comes in handy and it can reach the 15 feet up needed to reach the apples. We are pretty well practiced at a technque where one of us hooks apples off and the other catches them. Even then quite few hit the concrete, but we picked up the broken and bruised apples anyway. I abhor waste and it doesnt matter if you are cooking fruit how battered, bruised it is, or if you picked it off a road. Crickey we have ate dead animals found at the side of the road we aren't going to stick our noses up at apples. 

10kgs of apples later, we take them home and sort the good apples from the road kill apples. 2kg of good apples are sliced and dehydrated at 50c overnight, the road kill ones go to making apple butter. 

Apple butter like damson cheese is away of perserving apples long term as a thick concentrated paste. It has become virtually unheard of in the uk, although it is more common on the continent and north america.  The recipes vary in the amounts of sugar and vinegar that is added, this may be in part due variation the acid and sugar content of apples themselves and regional differance in taste. For example the states add way more sugar to recipes than they do in germany. The basic food science behind apple butter is that enough water is removed to concentrate the sugars and natural food acids to stop spoilage. To do this you must cook the apple down until it is solid and jar while hot making sure the jar seals. 

I did one batch of naked butter where I didnt add any extra sugar or vinegar. 

Recipe Naked Apple Butter. 

Peel and cut up a jam pan full of apples. 

Pour on 2 cups of boiling water. 

Cook stirring occasionaly for a hour. 

Blend with hand blender. 

Cook for another 1/2 hour or so stirring occasionally. 

Stir constantly for another 1/2 hour. 

Continue stirring until the solid goop is bubbling like lava, for the butter to be able to store you need to boil off most of the water. 

Scoop into a jar and lid while still hot.
Place jar in pressure cooker and bring to pressure and then switch off. 

Eat within a month, store somewhere cold. I have had this recipe store a long time in a properly sealed jar, I find it only tends to spoil by fermenting, which isn't spoilage it is wine (ok maybe not wine but it is still edible) it is still fine to put in a cake. If it grows a fuzzy on the top it can often still be used if the fuzzy is scooped off, it shouldn't grow one if jarred at a high enough temperature. 

Recipe Apple Butter for longer storage. 

Peel and cut up a jam pan full of apples (about 4 lb/2kg once chopped)

Pour on two cups of apple cider vinegar, I used home made red wine vinegar

Cook for one hour stirring occasionally, then blend. 

Add mixed spice to taste.

Add one cup of sugar

Cook for an other hour, stirring constantly for the last half hour. 

Apple Butter should look at least this thick when cooked

Put the paste in jars and lid immediately. 4lb of chopped apple filled 2 1lb jam jars.

To increase the shelf life, I heat the filled jars in a water bath in a pressure cooker. The pressure cooker filled with enough water come up to at least half way up the jars. It is then heated to pressure for five minutes. I dont have a pressure canner. 

I use the apple butter mainly to make cakes and as a sweetener to various recipes. The acidic type of apple butter simply needs self raising flour added at a ratio of two parts flour to one part apple butter, mix and bake. The first time i made it my children nicknamed it instant cake, my daughter even brought a jar to uni with her. It can also be spread on toast or used as you would apple sauce. 

Ok making the apple butter left me with a kilo [2pounds] of peelings, cores, and too far gone road kill apples to use. I fantastic recipe for using up all this natural bounty is to make apple scrap vinegar. 

Recipe Apple Scrap Vinegar

Weight how much scrap you have 

Add half a cup of sugar per kilo, or 1/4 a cup per pound if you think in old money. 

Cover with water

Cover container with cloth that prevent flies getting in but allows air.

Stir container once a day to add more air into to water. (vinegar requires high oxygen levels were as wine and cider require no air.)

Strain filter and Bottle after weeks. It should smell like vinegar. It will be only mildly acidic to start off with, and become more acidic in time. 

What could be more simple. 

That's why we are stupidly simple.