Jelly Honey: Quick Jam Recipe

Quick Jam Recipe

This is an apple spread recipe that was passed down to me. It's actually more of a jam but it is always delicious spread on toast, muffins or crumpets. If you don't want it to be tangy, you can replace the cider vinegar with water.
2kg (4 lb) sweet apples, cored and chopped.450ml (16 fl oz) cider vinegar
225g caster sugar, or more if you prefer.5 dessertspoons ground cinnamon
5 teaspoons ground cloves.1 1/2 dessertspoons ground allspice.4 tablespoons lemon zest.
Place apples, cider vinegar and sugar into a large stockpot. Cook over medium-low heat until soft. Pass the fruit through a sieve. Measure the apple pulp into a large mixing bowl by keeping track of how many grams of apple pulp you add to the mixing bowl. For each 250g of apple pulp, mix in 1 dessertspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1/2 teaspoon allspice and 1 tablespoon of lemon zest. Spoon the mixture into a casserole pot. Cook the mixture over a medium or medium-low temperature until it "sheets" from the spoon (see below). The sheeting stage can be tested as follows: take a small amount of the apple in a spoon and let it cool slightly. As it thickens, two large drops will form along the edge of the spoon (as you hold it upside down) one drop on either side of the spoon. When these two drops come together and fall as one drop off the spoon, the sheeting stage has been reached. Pour into hot sterilised jars. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.This recipe was somewhat confusing. Steps 3 and 4 are unclear in that after passing the fruit through a sieve, we {my husband and I} didn't know what to do with the remaining pureed apple juice of which there was quite a lot. We didn't know whether to combine this with the apple pulp and the spices, zest etc. or to discard it completely. We ended up combining the pulp, spices and pureed apple and then continuing with the other steps. Also, the 'serving' section was somewhat confusing in that we weren't sure what the number 48 referred to and were hoping to know how many grams of jam the recipe produces. I would also recommend substituting part or all of the cider vinegar for water. We used a really god quality organic vinegar but it has been 24 hours and our house still smells like vinegar. Other than that, we were really happy with the jam.