Accidental Apple Glaze

Yes ACCIDENTAL.....

Some of the best things in life are accidents (No, i'm not talking about the kids....Both planned).  My mother decided she wanted to make apple jelly yesterday. So of course I was up for it. She even supplied the apples. BONUS!!!!

The trick was this.  SPLENDA. Being a diabetic, my mother cannot bask in the glory of sugar like we do. I couldn't imagine not being able to down a sugar packet at the restaurant just because.

Needless to say, I quickly scanned the Sure-Jell recipes to check if this was OK.

Yadda yadda yadda....."reducing sugar"...blah blah..(yes this is how I read....It's called SKIMMING, most guys do it)...."sugar substitutes"....blah yadda blah....

OK,  score.....This will work just fine. 

So mom gets here, we bust out the jelly, only to find out that it will NOT SET. In fact, it is the consistency of thick maple syrup.

Back to the recipe.  Only this time, I read in slightly greater detail (like EVERY word)

Apparently the "blah blah yadda" parts were important. It said "reducing sugar or using sugar substitutes will result in SET FAILURES"

OOOOoops!!!!

Hence, we have an AMAZING apple glaze. We even tried it on pork chops last night for dinner. heavenly

So here it is. The process for "Screwing up"

Pick your apples. They don't need to be perfect since we are just going to juice them.

Quarter the apples. You can leave the seeds in them, but I would recommend removing the stems and any bad spots.

cook the apples in a COVERED pot with 1 cup of water per heaping quart of quartered apples. They need to be cooked until they are soft all of the way through.

Extracting the juice can be done in different ways, but I prefer to recycle old T-shirts to strain the fruit. You can twist the shirt tightly without tearing the fabric, and in turn, this requires less squeezing with your hand.

Wear a good glove if you are impatient like us, otherwise you will burn your hand badly. The glove I am using here is not a "cleaning" glove, it is a specially insulted glove made for handling hot foods. 

Might I recommend waiting for the apples to cool.

On the stovetop:

Put 7 cups of apple juice into a pot and add 9 cups of Splenda, stirring constantly. The burner should be set to Medium.

Now add the Pectin. This will help the mixture gel slightly and prevent it from having the consistency of water.

Continue mixing slowly until you have reached a rolling boil. (This is where the mixture boils even while you stir it) Keep at rolling boil for about 1 minute, then shut off the burner.

Ladle the glaze into jars and cover with lids and rings. Leave about 1/4 inch of head space.

Process for 5 minutes in water bath canner and POOF!!!!...Magic Mistake.

If you want to mess this all up and do it RIGHT, you could always use real sugar instead of splenda, and you will get apple JELLY instead of glaze.......but what fun is that?

My mother wants to heat up some of the glaze and drizzle it over ice cream.  Can't say that would be a bad idea at all.....Mmmm!