Recipe - Nier Beurre (Channel Islands Fruit Butter)

2 pound Dessert apples
1 pound Cooking apples
Granulated sugar
2 pt Dry cider
One half Orange
One half Lemon
Ground cinnamon & allspice

Fast boil the cider until reduced by half. Peel, core and slice HALF of
each sort of apple; add them to the pan, pushing them well down into the
liquid. Halfcover the pan and simmer gently until the fruit is soft.

Add the remaining apples, prepared in the same way, together with the
juice and zest of the citrus fruits. Halfcover the pan and continue
simmering until all the fruit is well reduced, pulpy and tender. Stir
occasionally and crush the fruit down into the pan with a potato masher as
it cooks. Measure the pulp and process it to a puree if it is at all
lumpy. Add sugar at the rate of 10 ounce for every pint of apple pulp, and
stir in about 1 teaspoon ground allspice.

Simmer, stirring frequently, until most of the moisture has been driven
off. The readiness of a fruit butter is judged by its consistency, not by
set or temperature. It is ready when it is nearly dry a spoon drawn
across the mixture should leave its own impression. Pot in small, clean,
warm jars and store in a very cold larder or fridge. Once jar is opened,
the contents should be eaten up within 3 or 4 days. Makes enough to fill 4
or 5 small jars.

Source: Philippa Davenport in "Country Living" (British), March 1989. Typed
for you by Karen Mintzias

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini