We stumbled upon something that we find just so delightful! It’s called boiled apple cider! It’s rather like apple syrup of sorts.
It’s an old thing, apparently from the time of the Colonial settlers and probably longer back! It’s a concentrated form of apple cider that keeps a lot longer than actual cider.

All you do, is slowly simmer a gallon of good, fresh, natural apple cider. It takes a lot less time then maple syrup but the idea is pretty much the same. Low to medium heat to burn off the water from the cider.

You should stir often, just to keep it from getting a little weird. We felt it needed less time to watch then maple syrup as well.

Our first batch took about 2 hours. It was pretty simple, just bring it to a good boil, and then turn it down to about medium heat and keep it cooking. You will find that if it’s boiling hard, that is probably a little too much. But if it’s just sort of sitting there, you might want to turn it up a wee bit.

You will know when it’s done when there is very little left in the pot. And when you lift up the spoon, it’s thick and dark brown, almost like syrup. The idea is to burn off all the water as steam. I noticed that as it gets closer, there is less steam and it wants to boil a bit quicker. You might want to turn it down some as it reaches this point.

Remove the pot from the stove and let cool a few minutes. Be very careful! Like syrup, this stuff is very hot and has a high concentrate of sugar so it will burn you badly! Let it cool about 5 to 10 minutes off the heat. You want it still warm, just not super hot. Ladle into a jar… we got about a pint out of a gallon of cider. If you want to, you can process it like a jam or jelly… in a hot glass jar with a new ring and water bath at about 15 minutes. We didn’t do ours that way, it keeps for a good while in the frig and you can also freeze it!

Now, here is the good thing. You can use this stuff just like syrup, though depending on the cider you use, it might be sweet or tart or somewhere in between. Ours had a nice tart taste but it was solid apple taste! You can add it to muffins or cakes, you can use it in hot tea or coffee. I hear that you can pour a bit of this in a glass with ice and a shot of good whiskey! I thought it was great on pancakes with a drizzle of boiled cider and a drizzle of maple syrup! And in fact, you can use it in candy making and it makes amazing caramels!

It’s just a fun little homesteading craft that honestly, I’ve never heard about until I read about it in a King Arthur Flour catalog and thought, I gotta give that a try!

And let me tell you, it’s amazing!!!

This fall, we discovered a wonderful family orchard about 8 miles from our home. Just a nice little place, with a good selection of trees. We stopped in one day and bought a little bag of fresh apples as well as a gallon of cider and also a caramel apple to share.

Well, we snitched a bit of the cider when we sat in the warm sunshine and split this giant caramel apple! Both were SO good! We had to come back for sure!

And we did. And the second time, we brought some buckets because we learned that you could go and pick up fallen apples from the orchards for $4 a bushel. Yes, $4. Needless to say, over the next few weeks we picked 10 bushels! Yes… ten… Mostly for our livestock, but we kept out the best for our freezer! We peeled and cut apples and created about 10 gallon bags full of ready to go apple pie filling and the goodies for apple crisps and muffins. I think we probably bought about 6 or 7 gallons of their cider, it was awesome. But mostly, our animals got so spoiled on great apples… they would wait at the fence when we pulled up and they suspected we had apples!!!

Also, on a few of our visits, a local pizza and sub shop was on location and selling their wares. What was kind of funny, we had tried this place when we first moved in and well, didn’t really like their pizza. It was okay, but not what we were used to. So we hadn’t been back. However, we watched folks get these ham and cheese grinders and they just looked so good, we had to give them a try.

My goodness! They were fantastic! Just ham and two kinds of cheese, with a mayo spread and grilled French bread. I will admit, we’ve had several of these grinders now and it’s one of our favorite local places for lunch! I guess it means you should try a few things at your local lunch spots to make sure you find the right specialty! (They also have great french fries… we found that out, too!)

We really enjoyed our visits to the orchard and their fantastic cider. And apples. And donuts. And caramel apples. And the grinders… Wow… It’s great when you start to really know your hometown businesses, even if it’s your new hometown! We’ll be back for sure in the fall!

Everyone waiting at the fences for us to throw apples to them to fetch! We were careful not to conk too many critters on the head! We throw like girls and half the time, we couldn’t even get them over the first fence to the second fence! The ponies sure loved the apple treats but so did the goats and sheep! Everyone loved the applefest. We tried to save as many as we could, and we made it till the middle of November for the livestock stash. All the hogs LOVED the apples… Ebony taught her babies to really enjoy apple time.

Next year, we plan to save up a bit more and stash them in the cold barn to have treats longer into the winter for everyone!!! We’d love to have our own trees producing better, but right now, we just have one apple up front and one old pear way out back. Each is old and not heavy producers. We will be trimming them back a bit this fall to try and encourage some new spring growth and more fruit! And we’re planting more young trees so that eventually, we will have our own little orchard. But until then? We’ve found a good local substitute!!!
 

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