Apple Pie Jam

Recently I was listening to NPR and heard a great story about a blogger whose specialty is canning.  The best part about the story was listening to the sound jars make as they vacuum seal after their water bath.  That really brought back memories!  The blogger featured in the story  is Mrs. Wheelbarrow, and her blog was really interesting.  That set me off on an internet hunt for interesting or unusual jam recipes.  I found two I really wanted to try, one uses frozen unsweetened strawberries and fresh cranberries, and is called Christmas Jam, and the second was a creation called Apple Pie Jam.

Imagine my surprise when, within a few days of deciding to make apple pie jam, Mrs Wheelbarrow herself featured that recipe!  I had to make it!  We had apples aplenty from our trip to the Community Apple Orchard.  Last Saturday was a day crammed with lots of fun things, including a trip to Pella and to the local farmer's market- it went by so quickly, as most of my Saturdays do.  It's the one day I don't work at either of my jobs, and I try to make sure to spend just enough time to get the laundry done and do minimal housekeeping so I can have some play time.  Here's what we picked up Saturday:

We had a very late lunch, and then weren't very hungry for supper.  I had dinner in the crockpot anyway, so we decided to just let it continue to do its thing while we made the jam.  Halfway through, I realized that my grandma's ladle wasn't anywhere- Jeffrey had left it at a work potluck on Thursday (and now it's missing, which makes me very sad).  Jam also takes a lot of sugar, and if I wanted to make two batches, someone would have to go to the store.  Jefrey got elected, while I finished up the first batch and started peeling and chopping apples for batch #2.



I had everything ready by the time Jeffrey got back from the store with a new plastic (ICK!) ladle and 2 bags of sugar.  I put this batch into itty bitty gift jars.  Here are the results of our labor.  The color is very dark, because of the brown sugar and spices in the recipe. 

I had just enough  warm jam left over to pour over a little dish of vanilla ice cream for each of us.  Delicious!