Quality Foods had a bag of Spartan Apples on sale so I thought I would try my hand at canning some. This is the first year I've tried canning, so I found a simple recipe appropriate for my newbie status. To make them more to my liking, I changed the flavouring from vanilla to spices and added some red food colouring for a crab apple look.

Canned Spiced Apples

10 medium apples
4 3/4 cups sugar
4 cups water
4 cinnamon sticks
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon red food colouring

Fill a large bowl with water then add one tablespoon salt and one tablespoon vinegar. This will be a "bath" to keep the apples from turning brown while you get them all peeled and cut.

Peel, core, slice then put apples in the water bath. Mix sugar, water, food colouring and spices wrapped in cheesecloth in a large pot and bring to a boil. Drain and rinse the apples. Carefully add them to the heavy syrup and cook for 5 minutes or until they become translucent. Stay just under the boiling point to prevent foaming. Spoon the apples into clean hot jars, cover with boiling syrup leaving 1/2 inch head space. Seal the jars and process in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes.

The syrup is very sweet, making the apples a good side dish or topping for ice cream. I had a lot of syrup left over and hated to waste it. It had a spicy apple flavour so I tried putting some in 7-Up and it made a tasty fall drink. Later, I got some club soda and that was even better. Do you have any favourite fall apple recipes? I'd love to hear them. - Margy