And Another Apple Recipe!

So now that I have 2 canning apple recipes down (plus I also dried a bunch of apples), I went ahead and did another one. Taking inspiration from my various canning cookbooks, a few of the recipes included the use of alcohol; in the case of apples, they recommended brandy. I'm not really in love with brandy, it's not something I drink. I thought about it a bit then went, "Aha! I know exactly what would go with apples!". Goldschläger.

Not only would the cinnamon alcohol go wonderfully with apples, it has little flakes of gold in it so it would look super pretty too!

This is the recipe I came up with:

Apple Slices in Light Syrup and Goldschläger

5 pounds of apples, peeled, cored and sliced

5 cups of water

2 cups of sugar

1 cup of Goldschläger

Prepare canner, jars and lids.

In a large stainless steel pan, combine sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer gently, stirring to dissolve sugar, about 5 minutes or so. Add your apples and return to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently with occasional stirring, until apples are slightly tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Using a slotted spoon, remove apples from syrup and fill your prepared hot jars to within 1/2 inch of the top of the jar. Meanwhile, return syrup to a boil over high heat. Remove from heat and stir in the Goldschläger. Ladle the hot syrup into the jar leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if necessary. Wipe rims, center lids on jars and screw down the band until fingertip tight.

Place jars in the canner making sure they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove lid from canner, turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove jars and place in a draft free area to cool slowly. When cool, store.

This makes between 5 to 6 500 mL (pint) jars. I used the apples that I had on hand, which was a combo of Fuji, Gala and Honeycrisp, but you can use whichever apples you see fit to use. If you're unsure about what kinds of apples are best for what, I found this neat site:

http://www.pickyourown.org/apples.htm

I have to say I LOVE my apple peeler/corer/slicer thingy, it makes life so much easier! (when you're dealing with an insane amount of apples) The other comment I should make is to give the bottle of Goldschläger a good shake before pouring it in to the syrup so that you get a good distribution of the flakes.

Here's a closeup of one of my jars so you can see the gold flake:

How pretty is that? 

You can use these to fill tart shells, to eat with ice cream, as pie filling; I personally know these are awesome to put in pie irons when you go camping!

My next project is dealing with all the carrots I just dug up from the garden, and to take a stab at fermenting food. Have a super day!