Making Crab Apple Jelly (most delicious)

making jelly and jam isn't very hard. i use the Certo (pectin) recipes, as my mother taught me.
we have a crab apple tree at the farm that has the BEST crab apples, but it only produces fruit once every few years.

first you need your crab apple juice.

• cut the blossom ends off the apples, and make sure you cut out any wormy parts. these are "organic" apples, worms, blemishes, and all
• leave the skins on, as it makes a really pretty blush coloured jelly
• fill a large spaghetti pot with apple bits, then add some water. i only fill the pot 1/2 way, but my mom used to fill it up to the top of the apples.
• boil them suckers down until they are very soft and ready to loose their juice!
• we always use an old (clean) pillowcase to filter the apple pulp from the juice. .
• Certo says "DON'T SQUEEZE THE JELLY BAG OR YOU WILL GET CLOUDY JELLY!!!"

• beautiful thick pink apple juice (you can freeze the leftover juice for another jelly batch)

sterilize your jars and lids.

• put the lids in a saucepan and bring it to a boil and simmer it with the lid on until you need them
• the clean jars can go in the oven to sterilize, i do it at 300 degrees.
  

making the jelly...

• i follow the instructions on the Certo box exactly.
• make sure it boils for the full minute, plus a little more
• stir gently so that the jelly does not burn on the bottom, but don't whip air into it
• watch your self! the hot jelly blurps all over!
• stir slowly and constantly when you remove the jelly from the heat.
  
• skim off all frothy bits of foam. this makes the jelly yucky

• pour the jelly into hot jars (so that they won't crack when the hot liquid hits the glass)
• clean off the lip of the jar before you place the lids on
• lightly screw the lids onto the jars. you can tighten them later
• let them cool, don't move them around too much, and give some space around the jars
• jars make a cool popping sound when they seal
• you can tell if mason jars are sealed by pressing down on the lid. if it moves, it is NOT sealed
• to seal jars that didn't seal, give them a 'hot water bath'

one problem i had this year was that my jelly was too hard. pectin is an apple product so perhaps i should have used less pectin? it tastes fabulous, and it might have been because i used tiny crappy crab apples from another tree. sometimes you can find beautiful crab apples at farmer's markets. mmmmm