The essence of autumn
Boiling apple cider yields a delightfully versatile ingredient for fall recipes
The leaves of the sumac, autumn’s sentinel, have begun to turn red or orange, and the maples will soon follow. Summer faded to fall on the equinox — this year, Sept. 22 — and that may be the bad news. The good news is that fall’s brilliant colors signal that cider season has arrived. Knowledgeable cider-makers say the best cider is made with a blend of apples that combines sharp, sweet, bittersharp and bittersweet varieties. But even a cider made with sweet apples alone, served icy cold and preferably with a cinnamon-sugar-dusted doughnut in hand, is one of fall’s pleasures.
They know a thing or two about cider in New England, where colonists brought the British cider-making tradition — and the apple trees, too — to these shores. The Puritans were used to cider, preferably lightly fermented, as an alternative to beer, and they would have wanted that familiar drink.
Even a small orchard can yield more apples for cider than a big family could use. As Lew Nichols and Annie Proulx write in their marvelous book, “Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider” (Storey, 2003), a semidwarf tree can yield four to five bushels of apples, and every bushel yields 2 to 3 gallons of cider. A full-size tree may produce as many as 18 bushels.
By the time of the American Revolution, people could buy sugar and molasses, and of course canny Yankees knew about making maple syrup and producing their own honey. But all that cider created another New England tradition: boiled cider, or as New Englanders sometimes called it, apple molasses.
Today, boiled cider is among the 3,500 foodstuffs on Slow Foods’ Ark of Taste, and one of only 200 from the United States. Although a few companies still offer boiled cider — King Arthur Flour and Wood’s Cider Mill in Vermont, to name a couple — it’s incredibly easy to make at home.
You’ll need a large pot, several
hours of hands-off time and a gallon of good cider. Pour the cider into the pot, and bring it to a boil over high heat; if impurities rise, skim them off, so your boiled cider will be clear. Once the cider is at a rolling boil, reduce the heat enough to maintain a boil and let the cider cook, uncovered, until it has reduced to about 2 cups. This may take three hours, and you’ll want to check on it from time to time, but you don’t need to stir it or fiddle with it in any way.
When the cider has reduced, strain it into something like a pint canning jar, and let it cool. Cover and refrigerate to use as desired. It will thicken slightly as it chills.
If you continue to boil it past the 2-cup mark, you’ll eventually get boiled cider jelly. But this will need stirring as it reduces more and more, and it’s prudent to transfer it from your large pot to a smaller one after you reach the two-cup stage.
You can use boiled cider in both sweet and savory applications. I like a sheet-pan dinner with pork tenderloin medallions, chopped sweet potato or butternut squash, pearl onions and apples, all tossed in boiled cider and dusted with thyme and rosemary before baking. A deep-dish doubleapple pie of apples drizzled with boiled cider and topped with a classic streusel is another good way to use some of your stash. But perhaps my favorite way to use boiled cider is in the cocktail above. Robin Mather is a longtime food journalist and the author of “The Feast Nearby,” a collection of seasonal essays and recipes from a year of eating locally.