More pleasing was making apple cheese last night. Last weekend, we thinned the apples on the established trees, which had set a lot of fruit: far more than the one per spur recommendation. Accordingly, we took off a number of fruitlets (about 3kg), which we didn't really want to waste. A look through the various preserving books we have led us to a crab apple cheese recipe, which looked promising, unripe apples having a lot in common with crabs, I reckon.
Anyway, it was simple enough to make, though a bit time consuming (in a waiting around way, rather than actual work). I trimmed the stems off the apples, chopped each in two, and put in the preserving pan. After just covering with water, the apples were simmered until pulpy, and then pushed through a sieve. This was surprisingly productive: we only threw away a couple of mug-fulls of fibrous matter. We weighed up, and added the same amount again of sugar, along with a half teaspoon each of cinnamon and ground cloves per 450g. Gently brought to the boil, and then set it reducing.
The normal recipe is to boil until you can leave a clear spoon track, but I didn't want to overdo it, and the cheese was pretty deep. It's not, therefore, set as thickly as it should, and would probably be too soft to demould in the traditional fashion for a cheese. Nonetheless, it's gone a lovely rich red-brown, and tastes lovely (a little sweet for Liz, apparently, but I like it). It's made about a dozen jars, of about 350–400g each, which is probably a year's supply.
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