📌 Quick Summary: The 5-Minute Apple Harvest Fix
- 🧺 The Harvest Glut: When your garden explodes with too many apples and you are running out of canning jars, you need a fast, bulk-processing recipe.
- 🍏 The “Almost Jam” Pie Filling: Peel and chop 2 lbs of apples, mix with 1.5 cups of sugar, and let sit overnight. The next day, bring to a boil for just 5-10 minutes, pack tightly into sterile jars, seal, and wrap in a blanket to cool.
- 🌡️ Storage: The beauty of this thick, lightly sweetened apple preserve is that it does not require a root cellar or a fridge. It is completely shelf-stable in a regular kitchen pantry.
- 🍐 Pear Variation: Have too many pears? You can use a similar method to make shelf-stable pear puree, or boil small, unripe whole pears in a 1:1 sugar syrup for amazing whole-fruit preserves.
I honestly don’t know what to do with my harvest anymore. I’m going to run out of canning jars soon, and there is no way we can eat all of this. I only planted two zucchini plants, but I already have a mountain of them. I left just one cucumber plant in the greenhouse (even though spider mites are eating it alive), but we still have cucumbers. I used to have three plants and was picking 6 lbs (3 kg) every other day. I won’t even mention the boxes of tomatoes. I’ve already frozen enough bush beans from just 5 little plants, and they just keep pushing out more.
I’m not planting acres of this stuff, but the harvest is driving me crazy. But you can’t just plant 1 zucchini seed and 1 cucumber seed, right? What if it dies?
Anyway, I’m picking up fallen apples every other day and making “Almost Jam”. It flies off the shelves in our house during winter because the apples taste almost fresh.
(Here’s the recipe: peel and chop the apples however you want. For every 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of peeled apples, pour in 1.5 to 2.5 cups (300-500g) of sugar and leave it overnight. The next day, bring it to a boil and cook for exactly 5 minutes. Put it in clean jars and seal the lids tightly. Wrap them in a heavy blanket until they cool completely).
Russi wrote:
…making “Almost Jam”.
Anna, can these jars be stored at room temperature in a regular cabinet, or do they absolutely need a root cellar or fridge?
Maria Suvorova wrote:
Anna, can these jars be stored at room temperature in a regular cabinet…
Masha, I make this too, maybe just slightly differently. The exact name of this recipe is “Apple Pie Filling”. The recipe is great because it cooks incredibly fast, you can process a huge amount of apples quickly, and it doesn’t leak out when you bake pies with it. You seal them with metal canning lids and you can store them anywhere!
If you are using sweet early-summer apples, you don’t even have to peel the skin off, it turns out great, especially for quick sponge cakes.
Here is how I do it: For every 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of chopped apples, take 1.5 cups (250-300g) of sugar.
Pour about half a cup (100ml) of water into a wide preserving pan and add the sugar. As soon as it dissolves and starts to boil, start adding the apples in batches and stir. Once all the apples are submerged in the syrup and it comes to a full boil, cook for about 5-10 minutes and pack into jars. It turns out very thick, so pack the jars tightly. Then seal them and wrap them in a blanket until cool.
Aleksan9ra wrote:
The exact name of this recipe is “Apple Pie Filling”.
Luda, thank you for the recipe! So, you can just store it in a pantry cupboard and it won’t spoil, right?
I wonder if I can do this with pears? We have so many pears this year, I am looking at this harvest with sheer terror now))) I’ll make about 8-10 jars of compote, of course. We usually make pear puree, which also sits perfectly in the pantry without fermenting, but I wonder if pears would work as a chunky “Pie Filling” too?
Maria Suvorova wrote:
We usually make pear puree…
Masha, how much sugar do you put in your puree? Do you boil it in one, two, or three stages?
My apples are getting close, the early white varieties are already dropping. I’m going to dehydrate them, make fruit leather, and make orange-apple jam. My Chizhovskaya pear tree is completely loaded too.
VeraV wrote:
Masha, how much sugar do you put in your puree? Do you boil it in one, two, or three stages?
Vera, first I lightly boil the cored pears until soft, then I mash them with a potato masher, and put them back on the stove. I eyeball the sugar, to be honest. The original recipe was 1.5 lbs (700g) of sugar for every 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of pears, but now I just pour it straight into the pot. If the pot is half full of mashed pears, I pour in enough sugar to make it 3/4 full)))
Then I boil it again. For the last few batches, my mom and I started adding chopped pear chunks right into the boiling puree. It stores perfectly at room temperature in the heat of the house and doesn’t spoil at all. I actually just opened a jar to eat with pancakes! So delicious! We haven’t even finished last year’s stash yet, and we already need to make new batches)))
Maria Suvorova wrote:
…but I wonder if pears would work as a chunky “Pie Filling” too?
Masha, I haven’t tried making the pie filling with pears. I feel like it might not be quite as tasty, but you should definitely try it. Yes, these jars store wonderfully in a cupboard. When there are too many apples, I even can them in massive 3-liter (3-quart) jars. Honestly, I love apple preserves, and this one is so simple, not overly sweet, and we go through it very fast.
As for pears, last year I made preserves out of small, tasteless (unripe) pears. I used the pears completely whole, a 1-to-1 ratio of pears to sugar. First I made the sugar syrup, then dropped the whole pears in. It turned out amazingly delicious!
