My son came over last week for some of the peppers and cabbage and dropped off three pails of apples so I dried a lot and decided to make some apple sauce and canned apple pie filling. While looking on the internet the wife found a recipe of apple pie filling. This recipe called for Clear Jel. This was something new to me but we wanted to try it.
When I looked at the recipe it said to use 4 cups of apples peeled and cored… Four Cups?? I’m looking at three pails of apples… Yep! There goes the kitchen again but this time, the wife was home so she got involved with the first batch.
If I had my way, I’d connect to apple peeler to my cordless drill and go at this “Big Time” but she wanted the apples a bit thicker so we decided to remove the knife from the apple peeler and do slicing part of the operation by hand..
The other thing I notices was the 25 min for the hot water bath. So we decided to do a full batch or 7 quarts for the canner.
She calls this “Our Bonding Time” but working as a team we got enough apples peeled for a full batch.
The next thing was blanching the apples. That took a little longer because I could only blanch in small batches. While I as blanching the apples, she mixed up the ingredients and put them on the stove to heat up. Our first mistake was we heated the mixture to a hard boil and the Clear Jel got too thick.. This worked out ok but made it difficult to fold in the apples. When we did the second batch we watched the and as the mixture started to turn clear, we removed it from the stove, folded in the apples and filled the jars. I did a taste test and felt like I could taste a touch of the cornstarch in the second batch.
After 25 min in a hot water bath the apples turned out great. The mixture thickened to smooth type jell; the apple juice in the jell gave it that canned apple pie filling flavor and texture. I could not taste any corn starch this time so the hot water bath did the trick. The only concern I had is the head space in the jars. When hot the apples seem to expand in the jars during the hot water process the jell also thickens so several of the jars had the jell seep out the top. When all was done, we did end up with18 quarts and 2 pints and a small jar.
The next day, I was thinking of the Fried Apple Pies like I ate as a kid, I did a search on the forum and found a posting and a picture by ‘Roller’ stating that he uses Lard to fry his pies… As a kid, mom always used lard so I was going to give this a try but I was going to use premade dough. There goes the kitchen again……
I use a bowl and cut the dough at 5 inches, put some of the filling in the dough, wet the ends and folded it in half.
In to the hot lard they went and ended up looking like this… The apple filling taste great, the pie dough was flakey and light. Nothing like a baked pie at all. Thanks Roller....
I’m sure someone when looking at this could tell me how to make better pie dough….. Kate??? Roller??
Thinking of making some apple sauce this way but need to do something with the red peppers first.
Thanks for Looking!!!
When I looked at the recipe it said to use 4 cups of apples peeled and cored… Four Cups?? I’m looking at three pails of apples… Yep! There goes the kitchen again but this time, the wife was home so she got involved with the first batch.
If I had my way, I’d connect to apple peeler to my cordless drill and go at this “Big Time” but she wanted the apples a bit thicker so we decided to remove the knife from the apple peeler and do slicing part of the operation by hand..
The other thing I notices was the 25 min for the hot water bath. So we decided to do a full batch or 7 quarts for the canner.
She calls this “Our Bonding Time” but working as a team we got enough apples peeled for a full batch.
The next thing was blanching the apples. That took a little longer because I could only blanch in small batches. While I as blanching the apples, she mixed up the ingredients and put them on the stove to heat up. Our first mistake was we heated the mixture to a hard boil and the Clear Jel got too thick.. This worked out ok but made it difficult to fold in the apples. When we did the second batch we watched the and as the mixture started to turn clear, we removed it from the stove, folded in the apples and filled the jars. I did a taste test and felt like I could taste a touch of the cornstarch in the second batch.
After 25 min in a hot water bath the apples turned out great. The mixture thickened to smooth type jell; the apple juice in the jell gave it that canned apple pie filling flavor and texture. I could not taste any corn starch this time so the hot water bath did the trick. The only concern I had is the head space in the jars. When hot the apples seem to expand in the jars during the hot water process the jell also thickens so several of the jars had the jell seep out the top. When all was done, we did end up with18 quarts and 2 pints and a small jar.
The next day, I was thinking of the Fried Apple Pies like I ate as a kid, I did a search on the forum and found a posting and a picture by ‘Roller’ stating that he uses Lard to fry his pies… As a kid, mom always used lard so I was going to give this a try but I was going to use premade dough. There goes the kitchen again……
In to the hot lard they went and ended up looking like this… The apple filling taste great, the pie dough was flakey and light. Nothing like a baked pie at all. Thanks Roller....
I’m sure someone when looking at this could tell me how to make better pie dough….. Kate??? Roller??
Thinking of making some apple sauce this way but need to do something with the red peppers first.
Thanks for Looking!!!
