Crab apples

I can remember that when I was younger my mum (or grandma, can't remember which!) used to make crab apple jelly, which we ate on thinly sliced white bread and butter. When I started up jillicious! earlier on this year, my sister mentioned that she remembered eating crab apple jelly when she was younger, and how tasty it was. I promised her that I'd try to get my hands on some crab apples and see what I could do...

So when we were chatting to our newly-introduced neighbours Anthony and Sue during the summer, and they told us that a gorgeous tree in their back garden was a crab apple tree, my eyes lit up! The tree was covered in rosy red and orange fruit.... and I mean covered! So a trip round to Anthony and Sue's later and I was the proud owner of 2 massive bags of crab apples! (Thank you Anthony and Sue!)


With Anthony and Sue's crab apples I made a few jars of spiced crab apple jelly, and a few jars of bramble and crab apple jelly. The former is cooked with cloves and cinnamon and as crab apples make a rose-coloured jelly, it is both spiced and pretty! The bramble and crab apple jelly takes on the colour of the brambles, so is a dark purple colour, and has a lovely flavour...bramble jelly with a bit of a bite!

Our friends Laura and Tom brought us a big galvanised pail full of crab apples from their garden a couple of months later, and with their crab apples I made crab apple and quince jelly and spiced crab apple and plum jelly. The crab apple and quince has a lovely flavour, slightly perfumed from the quince. The flavour of the spiced plum and crab apple jelly reminds me a bit of Christmas and mulled wine (yum!) and I reckon the gorgeous colour of the jelly is just the kind of uplifting sight you need at breakfast time this time of year!

See what I mean?!

I would eat these jellies on toast or bread and butter, as a sweet preserve but I think that they would probably go just as well with cheese and biscuits too. Why don't you try them and decide for yourself?