Making Jelly with Natural Pectin

 Apples make an excellent base for various types of jelly due to their high pectin content, predominantly found in their skins, cores, and seeds. You can use them in place of commercial pectin to make jelly of plants that don’t contain much pectin of their own. Slightly unripe apples will work better for this than ripe apples. You could also use crabapples. When working with this recipe, do not peel the apples.

4 pounds tart apples cut into quarters – unripe apples and crabapples also work
4 cups water
4 cups white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon peel

1. Put the ingredients above in a thick-bottomed pot.
2. Bring this mixture to a soft boil and simmer until the apples are cooked enough to mash them up. Once the apples are mashed, you can add any of the following combination of ingredients.
   • Jalapeno Jelly – 8 chopped jalapenos, 1 chopped sweet green pepper
   • Habanero Jelly – 4 chopped habanero peppers, 1 large chopped sweet red pepper
   • Mint Jelly – 1 1/2 cup freshly chopped mint leave
3. Cook this mixture for another five minutes and then remove from the heat.
4. Once it is cool, strain through a sieve or through a piece of butter muslin or a jelly bag.
5. Measure this juice into a heavy bottomed saucepan with a wide mouth. For every cup of liquid add 3/4 cup of sugar.
6. Bring this mixture to a boil while stirring to dissolve sugar.
7. Cook until the mixture reaches around 217-222°F (103-106°C). It will usually foam up around this stage. Don’t worry that is just the natural pectin of the fruit.
8. Test the set of the jelly and when it is ready process the jelly.

Alternatively if you want to make natural liquid pectin to make jam, you can cook 8 cups of green (tart or unripe) apple peels and cores with two cups of water and peels from a lemon until it is good and mushy and either press the mixture through a sieve or you can put it through a juicer. I package it up 3/4 cup at a time and use one of these packets per 4 cups of fruit.