Dang, I’ve been all domestic lately! LOL!! My friends and family keep telling me, “Diana, you are becoming quite domestic.” I never quite know what to think of that, lol! I take it as a compliment 🙂 My latest domestic challenge came from Steph Chow’s Jam Exchange. For this exchange I wanted to do something special, something a little different. I’d been thinking about making my own pectin for quite some time after having realized that it only takes apples. Having eyed an apple tree in my neighborhood, I decided it would be the perfect time to make a new friend, hehehe, and make my first batch of apple pectin to use for this exchange. I knocked on my neighbors door and he allowed me to pick some underripe apples needed in order to make the pectin. I walked away with a full bag of apples and a huge smile on my face 🙂
Ingredients:
(This recipe makes 4 cups of apple pectin)
- 8lbs underripe apples or crab apples, sliced. Keep the cores and all!
- 8 cups water (1 pint of water for every pound of apples)
Method:
- In a large dutch oven, bring 8 cups water to a boil.
- Add the apples (skins and cores), to the water and boil for 20 minutes.
- Stir. Apples should be soft and falling apart.
- Lower the heat and simmer for an additional 20 minutes.
- Strain the juice through a cheesecloth, tea towel, or t-shirt in a large pot or bucket.
- Let this sit for a few hours or overnight, until all the liquid is seperated from the pulp.
Test The Pectin
- Add alcohol to a small bowl
- Add a spoonful or more of cooled down pectin to the alcohol
- If the alcohol turns into a jelly blob, the pectin should jell your jam
- If it doesn’t jell, and runs loosely through your fork, you will need to boil your pectin down some more.
Preserve
- The pectin can now be preserved by canning in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Will save up to a year!
Here is a video on how I tested my pectin!
To use: 4 cups of homemade pectin replaces 3 ounces of commercial liquid pectin in most recipes.
This was alot of fun to make. Now I’m anxious to harvest my husband’s crab apple tree at work!!
This post is a part of the first annual Nourishing Jams, Jellies, Preserves and More Blog Hop.
This is very interesting! I have never seen this before.
I love every thing homemade too.
is there any way to test the pectin without add it to alcohol??
Thank you for sharing the recipe.
zainab 😀
cool and love your clip, folks tell me as I see you cook a lot as i linked my blog to facebook buts thats a good thing!!
That's awesome Diana! I wish I could find good organic apples here!! Do you know of any other fruits that are high in pectin? I google around, but let me know if you do :o)
Another successful video clip! What camera do you use? I have a video option on a point and shoot Nikon, but I have to find the right software to convert the format so I can post it on YouTube. Because that's a hassle, I don't do it.
zainab – I'm not sure, definitely something I can look into 🙂
Mare – I'm sure you'll find high pectin fruit on google, but I know raspberries and blackberries have higher pectin levels than strawberries. Figs are also high in pectin.
Jenny – I use The Flip!! Great camera for blogging, super easy to upload straight to utube! I sent you more info on your blog 🙂
Hmm, cool! I'm making jam this weekend, wish I would've thought of making pectin beforehand!
Awesome! Now that's going all the way!
Diana, thank you so much for sharing this! All this while, I've no idea where to get this and I can't even find it in any grocery shops over here. Lucky me….finally, I can make my own pectin. Yey..
That is coolest thing I've learned in a long time! And I'm glad you liked the jam.
Hello Diana from Iowa !
This is Diana from Ohio 😉
Yes, it is wonderful that we can make our our stuff like this.
You can also use green (unripe) grapes.
It is very nice to "meet" another Organically-minded Diana 🙂
I am following your blog now with mine and will join you on Twitter as well – I am http://twitter.com/Relax_Naturally
Have a good day !
Organically Yours,
Diana
That's soooo cool! I will definitely try this 😀
This is very cool… now the trick is to find some underripe apples. (Watch out neighbors!)
how do you store home made pectin?
Julie – I should have mentioned this. You can can as you would jelly. Hot water bath for 10 minutes and should last you at least a year! I'm planning on making a big batch!!
Superbe! Just what I'm looking for!!! Thank you so much for sharing! I have difficult time looking for pectin in my local shops. This homemade pectin also a safer and great way to make jellies to share with my muslim friends 🙂 Hugs!
Awesome…I was just having the discussion with my mother about "What the heck IS pectin? And how natural is it?" Thanks for the insight. I'm definitely going to give it a shot.
Bowl, not bowel…
Diana, I'm linking this post to mine, dragon fruit jam & lemon marmalade. thanks alot for the recipe.
Love, kristy
What kind of alcohol do you test the pectin with? I have a lot of fruit trees and grow many kinds of berries so I preserve tons of stuff every year. Buying pectin gets expensive. So a little research landed me here and I am super excited to make my own pectin! Thank You!