Butter and babes

I was given some apples the day before yesterday and have been struggling to know what to do with them as we already have too many bags of cooked apple in the freezer. I came across a recipe for Spiced Apple Butter at this great website, so I made it this afternoon. Picture of the finished product to follow. A similar recipe is also in the River Cottage Preserves Handbook. I have to say that it was a lot of work; the apples have to be cooked in quarters without being peeled or cored as the recipe says that you need the pectin found in the peel and core to help the butter to set...mmm, well, the trouble is then that once they are pulped, you have to sieve it all to get the bits out. I think that it was worth it, as I have got about 8 jars of varying sizes of this lovely stuff, but my wrist aches rather from the sieving!

The FH has borrowed another incubator from the editor of the Smallholder magazine who lives locally, as we weren't going to get all the eggs in ours. It is an automatic one so there'll be no turning necessary. I'm going to plug it in tonight and make sure it reaches the right temperature before we set the eggs.