Recipe developer and tester Sarah Page talks about preserving apples
We dig into the art and science of preserving—and talk about preserving apples— with Sarah Page, a contributor to the latest version of the Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving: 400 Delicious and Creative Recipes for Today.
Page, who works as a recipe developer and tester, is a trained consumer chef and home economist. She loves creating new recipes with local and seasonal harvests.
Preserving Tips
Two of Page’s top tips for successful preserving are:
Use a tested and approved recipe
Use fresh produce
And her tip for first-timers? “Don’t be intimidated at all!”
“If you can cook, you can can,” she says.
Sarah Page contributed recipes to the updated edition of the Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving
Apples
Page, who grew up in a household where her mother served applesauce regularly, loves to work with apples and shares a few of her favourite ideas:
Apple-cranberry butter
Preserving apples for pie filling later in the year
Apple sauce with a savoury flavour (e.g. chipotle)
Leaving the skin on pink apples when making apple sauce to give the sauce a pink colour
No Pectin?
Apples contain lots of pectin and sugar. Page explains that that makes them a useful addition when making jam with low-pectin fruit, because they can be used in place of commercially prepared pectin.
If you’re planning to preserve a lot of apples, Page says that an old-fashioned hand-crank food mill is a worthwhile investment.
Want to Grow Fruit at Home?
Check out the No Fuss Fruit for Northern Gardeners Masterclass.