Aromatic apple jam will always come in handy when serving tea to the table, for making baked goods or as a filling for a pie. Prepare apple jam yourself, so you will be completely confident in the absence of harmful components and can safely use it for baby food.
The first step is to select high-quality raw materials for the future jam, that is, apples. They must be fresh and strong, without damage and the presence of putrefactive foci (the affected areas should be carefully and deeply cut out). Take cooked and thoroughly washed apples, remove the core with a special round knife that divides the fruit into eight parts and removes the middle part with the seeds. In the absence of such a device, this can be done using an ordinary knife.
Cut the cooked apples into small pieces and put them in a bowl, add water at the rate of half a liter per kilogram of fruit. Cover the saucepan with a lid and place over low heat. When the apples are tender, after about half an hour (depending on the type of apples), remove the pan from the heat and rub the fruit with a pestle through a colander or sieve, you can skip the apples through a meat grinder.
Transfer the resulting apple mass to a bowl with a wide bottom (the larger the surface of moisture evaporation, the faster the cooking process will be). Cook the mass over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, so you can avoid burning, spoiling the color and taste of the apple delicacy. There is no definite answer as to how much jam you need to cook. But it was noticed that the shorter the cooking time, the brighter and tastier the finished jam turns out.
Toward the end of cooking the apple gruel, add granulated sugar, this will ensure that the water evaporates quickly. For one kilogram of apples, you need to take eight hundred grams of sugar. If you want to end up with a thicker jam in consistency, put a little less granulated sugar. But remember, the less sugar in the jam or jam, the longer it takes to cook.
Put the cooked jam hot in pre-sterilized jars. Leave the jam to cool until a thick film appears on the surface, it will help prevent the fermentation process during storage. If the film does not form, put the jars of jam in a preheated oven and dry the jam slightly. Let the product cool and seal the jars and store in a cool, dark place.
