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Back in the day our grandmothers did not run to Kroger for a box of Sure-Jel. Many of them did what women have done for centuries; cooked up their own pectin.
Making fruit pectin, like riding a bike, isn’t difficult once you know how. Fruit pectin is the substance that causes the jam or the jelly to set up. Different fruits have different amounts of pectin. Apples and cranberries, for example have a large amount of pectin, while peaches and blackberries don’t have much at all.
In order to get a good set with jams and jellies pectin is added. At almost $2.00 a box commercial pectin can add cost to your jelly fast!
Try this fruit pectin. Sometimes you can ask the produce manager of your local store for the apples that they are about to throw away. Explain that you are making pectin and see if you can get them for a reduced price or free. They don;t have to look good, and bruises are fine. If they are a little on the green side, so much the better.
Homemade Fruit Pectin
10 lbs organic apples, sliced. Leave the peel, core and seeds intact.
2 1/2 quarts of filtered water
Place the apple slices in a large, enamel pan, seeds. cores, and all. Just barely cover them with water. Cover the pan and bring to a boil Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Apples should be soft. If they are not simmer for a few more minutes.
Pour contents of pan into a jelly bag. Allow the juice to drain through for 24 hours.
Add the juice back to the pan. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for twenty minutes or until the juice is reduced by half and mixture is thick and syrupy.
Layer a colander with a double layer of cheesecloth. Place it over a bowl and pour the liquid through the cheesecloth into the bowl. Immediately ladle the hot pectin into hot, sterile jars and put the covers on. Process for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. Remove from water and allow to stand at room temperature 24 hours before putting away.
Use 2/3 cup pectin to one quart fruit juice.
I find if you seal this in the small jam jars it it is very convenient and the size is about 2/3 cup.
Yield:varies, about 4 quarts.
Image:Marye Audet
the quantity of seeds to begin to cause a problem is utterly huge. if you even attempted “the chew” you’d be ill from bowls and bowls of seeds… long before the cyanide. some people are “convinced” however for reasons other than facts. perhaps your friend is really trying to meet some deeper need; some deeper sense of security.
Apple seeds do contain a cyanide compound but the amount that you would have to eat to get sick is enormous. The compound is released when the hard shell around hte seed is ground or chewed up, other than that is it contained, and passes through the system. I would think that boiling would release the compound, although again, it would take a ton of seeds.
a friend won’t eat some mint jelly made with apples including seeds, he thinks that the apple seed are poisonous, as far as I know they would have to eat a lot of them and if they are swallowed whole the just pass through.
as this receipt is for apple pectin, I wonder if anyone knows if the boiled apple seeds release any poison?