We’ve always been envious of next door’s apple tree. It’s an enormous thing – almost as high as the house – and always heavy with a good crop of red and green fruit at this time of year.
The worst thing of it is that our neighbours just let the fruits fall to the ground and rot. They don’t like them, they say, and have no use for them in crumbles or pies. That’s why we were so pleased when they said they would be going on holiday this week, and that we should jump over the fence and help ourselves to the figs on their bush by the back door. We asked if we could take some apples, too, and of course they were only too happy to be rid of them.
So yesterday morning I did just that: jumped over the fence with the help of some steps and filled a crate with 180 fruits.
Up close there were far more on the tree than I ever thought there might be when I looked over from our side of the fence, and I must have taken only a tiny fraction of what I could. There are literally hundreds more waiting to be taken.
I’m tempted to go back over on Saturday morning. They’ll still be on holiday, and I could take a ladder to get at some of the better specimens. But the question is, what can we do with so much fruit? We already have enough apple jelly to see us through to the end of the decade.
All suggestions welcome in the comments…
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Buy a dehydrator
Borrow an apple press and make juice/ cider!
Yes I agree the juice and cider root is a good one. Also, use it as a base for chutneys, bake a lot of freezable pies, stew and freeze some for later cooking use, and my favourite – find a lavender bush and use the apples as the basis to make some wonderful lavender jelly – the flowers should be in suspension in the jelly. Fabulous on crusty granary bread and dead posh if you are making Christmas gift hampers. It’s about six quid a pop in Fortnum’s.
I would love to get my hands on a juicer to make cider, and also to use it as a press for cheese, but decent ones are so expensive. I have followed Anna’s advice, though, and this morning screwed the lids on 14 jars of apple chutney, which smells wonderful. Still plenty of apples left, though, so I plan on making some apple and blackberry jelly and some apple schnapps. I have also given away quite a few of them to family.
Make applesauce and can it since you can just eat it or add it to cake recipes in exchange for fats. You can also make your own vinegar, lots of recipes for that online.
There is an interesting experiment by a Danish wine maker about juicing apples without a press. It’s a bit messy and time consuming, but I used the pectin-and-leave-it method (method #4) on about 25lbs of apples a few weeks ago and ended up with nearly 2 gallons of juice, so it definitely works.
http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2008/09/appeltje-voor-de-dorst-apple-day.html#BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075646491010581858
My slightly revised version was: cut the apples into quarters, whizz in a food processor and put in a bucket. Mix in a couple of tubs of Pectolase (can buy it in Wilkinsons or homebrew shops) and leave for a day. Take a jug’s worth of apple slop at a time and press it by hand through muslin / tea towel. That last part was the really messy bit, but quite fun in it’s own way and you’ll be amazed how much juice you get.
There was potential for even more juice, but I would have needed a proper press and I can’t justify buying one. I have toyed with the idea of making one though, there are plenty of plans around and some good youtube videos.
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