Homemade Pure Apple Syrup

Delicious, sticky, pure apple syrup. This is a perfect drizzle over pancakes and waffles, mixed into drinks or used in sauces.

Calling all unloved apples! All the wild apples, the bird-pecked apples, the bug-bitten and the ugly apples. This simple, sugar free apple syrup is a brilliant way to use them all.

It’s simply juice that has simmered down until the water has evaporated and you’re left with a sticky syrup. 3 kg of apples, juiced makes about 1.5 litres, which turns into roughly 200ml of syrup. The end result is a sweet but also tart syrup.

How sweet it gets depends on the apples used. I tend to use the wilder foraged apples which are on the smaller and tarter side. (These are also great in homemade fruit leather!)

If you’ve made fresh juice with a juicer before, you know that there is a lot of foam that forms on the top. Let it sit for 15 minutes so the foam splits from the juice, then use a spoon to scoop it off.

You want only the clear juice, though don’t worry if you can’t get 100% of the foam off.

It will accumulate around the sides of the pan when you make the syrup so you can scrape the bits you missed off then.

Pour the juice into a wide saucepan. The wider it is, the faster you will have syrup as more water can evaporate. If you juice a lot, you can divide it over two saucepans to speed things up.

Bring the juice to a simmer. Keep it simmering, on a medium heat, for about an hour and a half. Stir it occasionally and use a spoon to scrape off the dregs that accumulate around the sides of the pan.

Using under-ripe apples will create more apple scum to scrape off as they contain a lot more starch than ripe apples and this is what accumulates.

After 1 1/2 hours, the juice should have reduced considerable and it will be runny but also sticky.

When you stir it with a wooden spoon you should be able to draw a line in the syrup and see the bottom of the saucepan for 1-2 seconds.

The longer you leave it, the thicker and stickier it will get. If you leave it too long it will become apple jelly once it cools.

Store it in the fridge but if it thickens too much in there, bring it to room temperature before serving.

Have you made this pure apple syrup? Tag me and let me know! @home_grown_happines