Crab-apple kitchen

I spent most of yesterday in the kitchen. It was good. My legs were letting me know by the end of the day but the results were humble and pleasing.
These pretty little fruits have been nibbled at by my human mouses over the past week so our somewhat small pickings became somewhat, ever so quietly, smaller. 

I've not made crab-apple anything before. I found a jam/jelly recipe on the ABC website . 
This requires the whole fruit minus the ever so clingy stems. I found a small sharp knife helped them to come away.

Seeing as the jam/jelly recipe uses only the water in which you cook the fruit I still had all that lovely soft-cooked crab-apple. I couldn't send it to the heap so went searching for a recipe that used the whole fruit, cooked, and came back with crab-apple butter. It contains, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, (just like hot cross buns!) perfectly seasonal, I thought.

It is a small harvest but a pretty one and I'm sure will be enjoyed. Already has been a little...those sticky fingerprints were found...

Oh, I kept a couple aside, just to look at a few days longer. Maybe to draw and paint, hmmm. I am so enjoying these. (Thanks Shemell!)