Applesauce! Crabapplesauce!

We made some crab-applesauce on Tuesday! We usually make applesauce a bit later in the season, but the crabapples were ripe and free! I (Ms. Brown) picked the crab apples from the park across the street from my home, and did a test run at home (I canned 14 pints :). 

1. First we had to cut the pre-washed crabapples in half — (mostly to check that they didn’t have worms inside, but I didn’t stress this because I don’t want the children to be afraid to eat an apple). For this step, I did the cutting while they watched (I pre- cut all except for about 10)

2. Then we had to cook the apples. We cooked them in a big pot with a few splashes of water. At this point, everyone went off to centres and came back over to the cooking pot when they wanted to watch and / or stir. We used an induction hot plate on a table ( I stayed with the hot pot throughout, Ms. E supervised the rest of the centres) 

Next we had to strain the pulp. We didn’t take off the skins, stems or seeds before we cooked it -  and those aren’t so nice to eat, so we had to separate them. We used a special conical strainer with a stand, and pushed and mashed  the pulp through with a special wooden masher.  The applesauce goes out the holes of the strainer and then into the bowl on the table, o and the part we don’t eat stays in the strainer. Everyone who wanted to got a chance to push the pulp through the strainer. 

The crab-applesauce was bright red! Some children said it looked like ketchup. 

Some of us liked the taste right from the strainer, but most children found it a bit tart so we added a bit of sugar (about a cup to the 12 cups of pulp).

Everyone opted to have a taste! Most finished their bowls and asked for more :). 

Definitely a success!