Tiny little sour apples... any good for cooking?

Angelina-M

twink wrote: »

angelina i just bunged everything in the one pan, crab apples, rosehips, rowans, elders and brambles, cooked in water and sieved, then made the jam

Well I wondered about doing that but the recipe I read said you had to let the rose hips drip through a tight weave bag in case any of the little hairs got in. Apparently they would irrate the throat.

So mine are taking ages to drip through a tea towel... cant see me getting it finished today at this rate :rolleyes:

skywatching

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Your graft has died and the rootstock has grown instead, a lot of cultivated fruit trees need a rootstock from a wild variety to grow on. It also makes it easier to dwarf them, a full size apple tree can be nearly as big as an oak sometimes.

<P>I think the rootstock must have died in the garden centre, lol. I bought the tree because it had a lovely shape, then found out I didn't have a spot in the back garden so I planted it out front. I got apples the first year and thought they were small because it was a young tree. This year however, it's covered in the wee apples, (looks good too) but it's definitely a crab. [EMAIL="I&#64;another"]I've another[/EMAIL] apple tree out the back. It's supposed to be a Worcester Pearmain, (dessert apple). It's nothing like it. The apples are huge and green, a bit like a bramley. Bought it from woolies about 8 years ago. I don't have the heart to dig it up and take it back though, lol. One apple makes a big pie, so I've enough to keep me in pies till next spring.

twink

skywatching your apple tree could be a howgate wonder, they have huge cooking apples not so sour as bramleys, we got one from woollies years ago, i just peel the apples into water with lemon juice, bag and freeze