Cooking with Crab Apples?
 

I ate a unique soup over spring break - it involved crab apples and butternut squash. This was the first time I had eaten anything that had been cooked with crab apples - and it was delicious! I love the tartness. So, Thanksgiving is around the corner and I'm fixing to make at least one side that incorporates crab apples. But so far I've only been able to find recipes for crab apple jam and apple butter. Has anyone here cooked with crab apples? Or, even if you haven't cooked specifically with crab apples, perhaps you have some suggestions that I can fiddle with between now and next week.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...pple_fruit.jpg
Thanks in advance!

Last night I made some deliciously tart bright-red crabapple juice. Also made some crabapplesauce.

Remove stems. Put crabapples in pot. Add water until it's just above the apples. Boil 30 minutes, covered. Mash. Strain with collander. Strain with tea strainer. Most of the seeds will be removed with the collander. The results from the second straining are crabapple sauce and juice! You might want to sweeten the sauce.

I've actually wondered about crab apples myself. I used to just eat them right off the tree in the fall...and my sister has a couple in her yard so when I see them I think "what can I cook those into?"

Your juice sounds very tasty...I might be tempted to add vodka. Or straight up for breakfast would be a nice wake up juice.

I think maybe a crab apple bread pudding might work. Of course I love bread pudding so I might be biased and off target. A little vanilla in it, too; maybe a touch of cinnamon or nutmeg. To me that sounds like it could work.

I found this link which has a couple crab apple bread recipes Cooks.com - Recipes - Crabapple Bread

But I couldn't find any specific crab apple pudding or bread pudding so I would just add it to a bread pudding recipe that has fruit in it, like maybe sub crabbies for regular apples.

But I stumbled on this one and this sounds great to me since I love ricotta and the pears and apples, even crab apples, are a classic combo. Where do you live, anyway? ...if you make this I need to come over and taste it...please :)

crabapple pear ricotta pudding | How Did You Make That?

I found a link for Parsnip and Crab Apple soup.

I don't think we have crab apples here.
We do have 'Reineta' apples which are very tart and only used for cooking. They have a weird, rough, brown peel.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DdVLvYeBHI...0/DSCF1101.JPG

I have a couple of cake/dessert recipes with those.

Thanks, Badnick & LT.

The parsnip & crabapple soup is just what I was looking for - definitely going to make that one.
I'm going to try that crabapple pear ricotta pudding recipe. Sounds like it could either be a disaster or a delight. Along those lines, actually - I wonder if I could add crabapples to a cheese-stuffed pear recipe. That might be pretty good.

Those Reineta apples sound like they have a similar quality. I'd love to see those recipes, if it's not too much trouble. I think the biggest difference (and it's a real issue somtimes) with crabapples is that they're often too small to peel or remove seeds - best to cook them so the peel falls apart, then filter out the seeds.