' I thought the purpose of using freshly pressed cider was not to have to add pectin' First off heat processing does not destroy pectin.......it releases it from the pulp. If you are using a cold process to extract apple juice (cider) a lot of the pectin will end up in the pomace instead of the liquid. If I don't want to add pectin to an apple jelly I make my jelly by simmering down apples and straining off the pectin rich juice. If I make it from cold pressed juice (cider) I just automatically add pectin. If you have loads and loads of apples like I do (my own little orchard) you have bushels sitting around and it's one way not to waste them. I did that this year by boiling and straining and also did the cold extraction. I bottled both up as juice/cider but there is a tremendous difference in taste and cold pressed cider wins hands down. The same can be said about the taste of apple versus cider jelly. If it's a carefully blended cider, and some are, it also wins for taste hands down over commercially obtained apple juice. Like comparing champagne to Ripple. My cider jelly compared to one off the market shelf.....there is no comparison so I'm taste driven when I make it. Cider jelly does not have to be cloudy, you can strain the cider. I do a crude strain but if I were making jelly with it, simply letting it sit undisturbed and decanting the clear liquid off the top leaves the residue settle on the bottom. I agree with Carol. Using apple's own pectin can indeed be tricky. Last year I produced one run of apple sirup instead of jelly, and I'm no novice at jelly making. It's all dependent on so many factors......how picky you are about taste, if you have huge amounts of apples (like we do) how much time you want to put into it. I have added spices on occasion to my apple jellies. Mostly not very exotic like cinammon. Never to my cider jelly.

I use my big electric roaster pan for cooking up my apples. I just wash and quarter them, and cut out the bad parts and dump them in the pan with a just bit of water. Put in the cover and check on it once in a while until they are ready - then I run them through the food mill. If I want to make juice for drinking or jelly, I add a lot more water. I'd also like to add that if your pan on your cermaic stove takes forever to boil water, you don't have the propery size/type pan. I had a few big stock pots that took forever, and this fall I spent the money and got a good heavy, flat bottem 12 qt stock pot that is just the right size. I am amazed at how quickly I can heat thing up now. Once it is boiling, I turn the burner down to about 2.5 to maintian the boil for water bath. I started paying attention, and with a slightly warped pan, or one the wrong size, the burner well keep cycling on and off. No wonder it took for ever to heat up. I was seriously thinking about getting a different stove, but with getting some proper pans, I really like my stove again. I've been using the Presto 16 qt canner on it with great results. Just have to make sure the heat plate is centered on the burner correctly. I'm down to my last 20 lbs of apples - I am so glad to be getting done! Cathy

/tricia- I live in Kansas and we average about 200+ sunny days and another 90-100 partially sunny days per year. About the only time of the year I have a problem using my solar ovens is when the farmers burn the wheat stubble after harvest and there is too much haze in the sky for good cooking temperatures - even on a sunny day - but that's only for a couple weeks a year. Cooking the Pumpkin Apple Butter outdoors was a good move yesterday because it was 97-degrees F and it was good to keep the heat out of the kitchen for 1-1/2 hours.... Yes, solar ovens require your attention to move them every 30-60 minutes to track the sun. Keep in mind too, not everything needs to cook/bake for long periods of time. I also have a Tulsi Hybrid Solar Oven (a favorite of Missionaries in the field in 3rd World Countries) which has an electric over-ride so you don't risk the temperature going below an unsafe cooking temperature if you don't get it moved in a timely manner, or if clouds come in. At that point, just think of it as a electric Slow-Cooker. You would never know there are lentils in the waffles. Hubby didn't the first time I served them (LOL) and now they are a once-a-week favorite. Sprouted lentils are a little sweeter than cooked lentils and the lentils are well-blended into the batter in a blender - so no whole lentils present. SPROUTED LENTIL-OAT WAFFLES Soak overnight: 1 c. water plus 2 T. kefir (or whey, yogurt, or lemon juice) 3/4 c. oatmeal The next morning blend the water/oatmeal with 1/2 c. sprouted lentils (I soak the oatmeal in my Bullet Blender cup, add the lentils the next morning and blend, when making a single recipe). Add: 1/4 c. whey protein isolate (or any kind of protein powder) 1 T. vanilla 1 T. chia seeds (optional) 1/2 T. coconut oil (melted) 1/2 T. agave nectar or coconut nectar (or sugar of choice) 1/4 t. salt I make these on my thin heart-shaped waffle iron, 1/4 c. batter per waffle. This size fits in my toaster. When I make two or three batches at once I'll use my Ninja blender for the batter and freeze the baked waffles. -Grainlady

Here's the recipe I use and my daughter too. Made in the crock pot. How to make apple butter - easily! Prepared this way, the jars have a shelf life of 18 months to 2 years, and require no special attention. A side benefit is that your house will smell wonderful while it is cooking - much better than potpourri! You can also skip the last canning steps, and just store it in your refrigerator (2 or 3 months) or freezer (indefinitely). Directions for Making Apple Butter Yields about 9 - 10 pints Ingredients and Equipment 9 quarts of Applesauce, fresh or canned (See step 1) 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon of allspice 4 cups sugar or Splenda, or an equivalent amount of sweetness to taste, from honey, Stevie or frozen concentrated apple or white grape juice. Jar grabber (to pick up the hot jars) Lid lifter (has a magnet to pick the lids out of the boiling water where you sanitize them. ($2 at Target, other big box stores, and often grocery stores; and available online - see this page) Jar funnel ($2 at Target, other big box stores, and often grocery stores; and available online - see this page) 1 Crock pot (slow cooker) 6 quart size (if your crock pot is smaller, just reduce the ingredients proportionately) Large spoons and ladles 1 Canner Ball jars quart jars including the lids and rings) Apple Butter Recipe and Directions Step 1 - Make unsweetened applesauce! That's right, apple butter starts with applesauce! You can use store bought applesauce, but the apple butter won't taste nearly as good. It's better with your own applesauce (either previously canned or fresh made). So if you haven't made some applesauce yet start here with how to make applesauce. Otherwise continue to step 2. Step 2 - Fill the crock pot Fill the crock pot to within an inch of full with applesauce, mine takes about 5.5 quarts. You will add the remaining applesauce later, in step 5. Now, you CAN do this using a regular large pot on very low heat on the stove, but the crock pot works much better, because its heat is very low. I've never had a batch burn in the crock pot. Step 3 -Add the spices Add: 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon of allspice 2 cups sugar (the other 2 cups are used in step 4) In place of sugar, you can use an equivalent amount of Splenda (sucrose) OR 1 twelve ounce can of frozen concentrated fruit juice (preferably a neutral juice, like white grape or apple). You could use honey or Stevena, also. The sweetener is present ONLY for your taste, not as a preservative, so you can use anything that is heat-stable, in quantities that suit your own tastes. You can skip the sweeteners entirely, too; but it loses a lot of the richness of flavor, in my opinion. 95% of folks seem to like using a total of 4 cups of sugar. Some folks prefer 3 cups of honey instead, and diabetics obviously like Splenda or Stevena. Step 4 - Cook down the Apple butter Set the crock pot on low or medium heat. Cover it loosely or use a large pot splatter-guard. It will spatter as it boils slowly, so I also cover nearby surfaces with towels. You don't want to seal it tightly because you want the steam to escape so it can reduce in volume and thicken. A visitor suggests, take a couple of butter knives, and lay them across the top of the crock pot. They are parallel and located about 2/3 of the way out from the center. Then put the lid on these supports, leaving it "covering" the pot and keeping the splatters under control, but, leaving a good gap for steam to escape. I just made a batch and tried this approach, but I used a pair of wooden chopsticks or bamboo kebab skewers - they worked great! Leave it to cook for 6 - 18 hours. How long depends on the size and power of your crock pot, and how thick you like it, If you want to stir it occasionally, that's fine but not necessary. I start mine around 8 pm on high for 1 hour, then on medium until I am ready for bed around midnight, then leave it on low overnight. But do be careful: if your crock pot does not heat evenly, and has hot spots; you can get localized burning. So once in a while, use a rubber or silicon spatula to scrape the sides and look for any burned apple butter. If it does burn: pour the apple butter out of the crock pot into a bowl. The burned apple butter will cling to the crock pot. Clean the crock pot, discard the burned bits and pour the unburned apple butter back in! Step 5 - Add the remaining applesauce It will reduce in volume by about half overnight. As it cooks down (the next morning), add the remaining applesauce (about 2 or 3 quarts) and 2 more cups of sugar. Then let it cook a couple of hours more to mix the flavors. Step 6 - Wash the jars and lids Now's a good time to get the jars ready, so you won't be rushed later. The dishwasher is fine for the jars; especially if it has a "sanitize" cycle, the water bath processing will sanitize them as well as the contents! If you don't have a dishwasher with a sanitize cycle, you can wash the containers in hot, soapy water and rinse, then sanitize the jars by boiling them 10 minutes, and keep the jars in hot water until they are used. Leave the jars in the dishwasher on "heated dry" until you are ready to use them. Keeping them hot will prevent the jars from breaking when you fill them with the hot apple butter. Put the lids into a pan of hot, but not quite boiling water (that's what the manufacturer's recommend) for 5 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" to pull them out. Step 7 - Blend the apple butter (optional) You want a smooth, creamy texture, right? The easiest way is to use a hand-held drink blender. It does a great job of making it smooth. You can also put it into a regular blender, but if you are going to do that, you might want to blend the apple sauce before you put it in the crock pot (it will be much thicker afterwards and won't move in a regular blender). Another visitor says running it through a food mill with a fine screen or through a sieve works, too. Tips: Too thick? if the apple butter cooks down too much or is too thick for your liking, just add a little bit of apple juice and blend it in. Not thick enough? Just let it cook some more, with the lid off so the steam can escape! Step 8 - Fill and seal the jars home canning jars, lids and rings If the crock pot isn't keeping the apple butter boiling hot, you will need to briefly return the butter to the stove to get it hotter. It varies from crock pot to crock pot. I find that if I set my crock pot on high for the 15 minutes before I fill the jars and stir frequently, it gets it boiling. Fill the jars to within 1-inch of the top, wipe any spilled apple butter of the top, seat the lid and tighten the ring around them. Step 9 Process the jars Process means put them in the canner and keep them covered with at least 1 inch of water and boiling. if you are at sea level (up to 1,000 ft) boil pint jars for 5 minutes and quart jars for 10 min. If you are at an altitude of 1,000 feet or more, see the chart below. Even though these times are right from the USDA, I usually tend to err on the side of safety and let mine go for 15 minutes; there's no harm in going longer. Recommended process time for Apple Butter in a boiling-water canner. Jar Size Process Time at Altitudes of 0- 1,000 ft 1,001 - 6,000 ft Above 6,000 ft Half-pints or Pints 5 min 10 15 Quarts 10 15 20 Step 10 - Done Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight) You can then remove the rings if you like, but if you leave them on, at least loosen them quite a bit, so they don't rust in place due to trapped moisture. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok. Linda