Crabapple Tree Guide: What Can you do With Them
Crab apple enthusiasts also love making them into jelly or jam. The high levels of pectin in these fruits help to give jelly or jam its jiggly texture.
Can You Eat Crab Apples?
Crab apple trees are common backyard plants. It’s common to wonder if the tiny apples from these trees are safe to eat.
What Are Crab Apples?
Crab apples are miniature apples made by flowering crab apple trees. These trees are excellent pollinators, and their fruit feeds many kinds of wildlife. As a whole, crab apple trees are attractive and valuable for the environment.
They belong to the genus Malus, like other apple trees. But, they make small, sour fruits — much different from the Red Delicious or Honeycrisp apples you see while shopping for groceries.
What do crab apples look like? Crab apples can almost look like cherries sprouting from their trees because they’re very small. These little fruits come in many colors, including red, yellow, and green. The telltale sign of a crab apple is its mini size.
How can you tell if a crab apple is ripe? To check if a crab apple is ripe, cut it open and look at the seeds. If they’re brown instead of white or green, it means the crab apple is ready to eat. It should also feel squishy when you press it with your hand. A ripe crab apple’s taste will be sour but not overwhelmingly so.
What makes a crab apple different from an apple? The fruit needs to have a diameter of two inches or less to be considered a crab apple. Anything more than that is an ordinary apple. Beyond the size, crab apples and apples have very different flavors.
Are Crab Apples Edible?
Yes, you can eat crab apples, but you may not want to eat them straight off the tree. These tiny fruits pack a bitter punch if you eat them raw. But their apple-like taste shines through in baked goods or other homemade recipes.
Are crab apples healthy? As for crab apple’s nutrition, they’re a good source of vitamin C and have small amounts of other nutrients. One cup of raw crab apples has 83.6 calories and contains low levels of iron, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, and magnesium.
These fruits also have high antioxidant activity, which may help your body get rid of harmful free radicals.
Are crab apples poisonous? A crab apple’s flesh is perfectly safe for people to eat. But like other apples, the seeds contain a toxic compound that can turn into cyanide when eaten. But don’t worry — these apples are safe as long as you avoid the seeds and core.
What Do Crab Apples Taste Like?
The name “crab apple” is an accurate representation of these fruits’ mouth-puckering flavor. The deeper red varieties are well-known for being more bitter than those of other colors. Not even the ripest of crab apples resemble the sweet taste of an apple from an orchard.
Some crab apple types are more palatable than others, but most people prefer not to eat them raw. The best way to enjoy these fruits is in baked goods and other sweetened recipes.
Where and How Are Crab Apples Commonly Used?
If you have a crab apple tree in your backyard and don’t want the fruit to go to waste, the right recipe can help you turn their sour bite into a delicious treat.
Sugar is a great way to curb the intensity of these little apples, and their sharp flavor can become delightfully tart when combined with a sweetener. They’re excellent in desserts such as pies, chips, and tarts.
Crab apple enthusiasts also love making them into jelly or jam. The high levels of pectin in these fruits help to give jelly or jam its jiggly texture.
It’s up to you how you use these little apples. And if you find that the taste isn’t for you, you can always enjoy the beauty that blooming crab apple trees bring to the environment.
Show Sources
Antioxidants: “Dietary Antioxidants and Health Promotion.”
Colorado State University Extension: “Flowering Crabapple Trees – 7.424.”
FoodData Central: “Crabapples, raw.”
Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry: “Profile and antioxidant activity of phenolic extracts from 10 crabapples (Malus wild species).”
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: “Malus sylvestris (Apple, Crabapple, European Crab Apple).”
Crabapple Tree Guide: What Can you do With Them?
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Crabapples have a bad reputation. It might surprise you to learn that you can eat plenty of varieties of crabapples, and they’re not the black sheep of the fruit world you thought they were.
In most cases, the buds on crabapple trees are a darker color than the flowers, giving the tree a multi-colored appearance as the flowers open during the summer. Leaf color can vary from green leaves in the spring and summer, to shades of bronze, yellow, red, and dark purple during the fall season.
Some expert gardeners state that the darker-leaf varieties are more prone to catching diseases and pest infestations than those with lighter leaves. For the most part, crabapple trees experience the same issues as other apple tree varieties.
So, what makes a crabapple tree different from other apple varieties? Technically, any tree that produces apples with a diameter of less than 2-inches is a crabapple tree. Most crabapple varieties have a sharp tart taste and a blend of sweet and sour. However, it’s possible to make these apples into jams and jellies with the use of some sweetener.
Crabapples also come in a variety of colors as well, from red to orange, yellow, marron, or green. Some species of crabapple trees bear no fruit. Instead, they only produce flowers in the summer season.
What Is a Crabapple?
- 1 What Is a Crabapple?
- 2 Types of Crabapples
- 2.1 Dologo
- 2.2 The Whitney Flowering Crab
- 2.3 The Centennial Crabapple
- 2.4 The Chestnut Crabapple
- 2.5 The Hopa Flowering Crab
- 2.6 The Pink Spires Flowering Crabapple
The crabapple is a domestic fruit originally from Kazakhstan in Asia, and it has a 6,000-year legacy as a fruit consumed by humans. The majority of apples we eat today come from hybrids of two species; the Red and Golden Delicious. Clever inter-breeding of these species resulted in the development of Gala, Pink Lady, and Fuji apples.
Apples you buy at the grocery store are also far larger than those that grow in the wild. If you take a look at wild apples, they’re often half the size of store-bought produce.
Crabapple is not a specific species, but rather a term given to an apple that’s looks small or under-developed. Simply put, crabapples are miniature apples. As a result of the fruits underdevelopment and size, many crabapples have a slightly sour taste, which is why most stores don’t keep them in stock.
However, you can eat some crabapples, depending on the tree and the growing conditions. If you live in a region of the U.S that has rainy summers and hot weather, then your crabapples might taste excellent for eating.
However, most crabapples don’t have enough time on the tree to fully develop. As a result, you might find that you get an upset stomach after eating a crabapple.
Types of Crabapples
Some types of crabapples are suitable for eating, and others that only serve as ornamentals on the tree.
Dologo
The Dologo crabapple tree grows to heights of up to 35-feet and produces apples that are either ornamental or best for use in jams and jellies.
Dologo also features resistance to some diseases affecting crabapple trees, such as fire blight and scab. As a result, it’s a favorite tree for home gardeners, and the larger apples are safe to eat without causing stomach issues.
The tree produces white flowers in the springtime, and the leaves turn yellow in the fall, bringing a breathtaking landscape to your garden.
The Whitney Flowering Crab
The Whitney Flowering Crab is another excellent choice for gardeners that need a smaller tree for their yard. The Whitney only reaches heights of up to 16-feet, producing white and pink flowers in the summertime. The gorgeous flowers also attract birds and pollinators to your garden during the summer, as well.
The Whitney also produces larger apples than most other crabapple trees, and the fruit is sweet enough to eat. The apples from the Whitney are also a great choice for canning and pickling, as well.
The Centennial Crabapple
The Centennial Crabapple is a dwarf crabapple tree, reaching heights of up to 8-feet. Some trees grown on rootstock can reach a height of up to 15-feet. This tree also produces apples that are fine for eating, and the fruit is also suitable for apple butter, jelly, or spicing as well.
The Chestnut Crabapple
The Chestnut Crabapple is the best choice for gardeners living in colder climates in the northern states. The tree produces a fruit with a nutty, sweet flavor that’s ideal for use in baking. The tree provides plenty of color in its foliage during the fall, and it acts as a pollinator during the summer months, drawing bees and birds to your garden.
The Hopa Flowering Crab
The Hopa Flowering Crab produces beautiful pink flowers, with white bees in the center. This tree grows to heights of 25-feet, and it’s more susceptible to diseases than other crabapple varieties.
The Pink Spires Flowering Crabapple
The Pink Spires Flowering Crabapple grows to a height of 15-feet, and it shows off it’s color dysmorphic properties in the fall, producing shades of red, orange, bronze, and marron as the weather starts to cool. However, the fruit from this tree is generally dry and bitter, and not suitable for consumption.
Growing Tips for Your Crabapples
After picking your crabapple variety, it’s time to choose a planting spot in your yard. Crabapple trees prefer full sunlight, so make sure you plant them in an area of your garden that gets sun all day. Your tree is somewhat susceptible to root rot, so make sure that you plant it in well-draining soil that has plenty of nutrients.
It’s important that you take the final height of your tree into account when planting. Make sure you don’t plant near walls or fences, as it will stifle the growth of the tree, or cause issues with your perimeter boundaries.
After finding your ideal planting spot, you can add multiple varieties of early, mid-range, and late-blooming crabapple trees to give your garden a spectacular bouquet of colors in the fall and prolong the blooming season as well.
Most crabapple varieties are easy to grow, and they make for fantastic ornamental plants. The crabapple tree has an eye-catching shape, attractive leaves, fragrant blooms, and it’s a very hardy and resilient tree when it comes to weather conditions.
If you’re growing other apple trees in your garden, then the crabapple can act as a pollinator to draw bees into the garden to pollinate your other trees.
Can You Eat Crab Apples?
Yes, you can eat most varieties of crabapples. There are plenty of types of crabapple and hundreds of hybrid varieties, as well.
The taste varieties from species to species, with some tasting very similar to a Fuji or Pink Lady, while others are bitter and dry. If it’s important for you to buy an edible variety, then we recommend you stick to the top types mentioned earlier in this article.
Generally, if you want a tree that produces edible fruit, then you’ll need to go with one of the larger varieties.
Is there a Toxicity Issue with Crabapples?
All apples are somewhat toxic. The pips in the apple core contain cyanogenic glycosides, which is the building block of the toxin, cyanide.
Cyanide causes death in humans. However, the chances are you don’t eat the core of your apples. Even if you were to eat the core, the low-dose of cyanide would probably do little to you, other than causing an upset tummy.
How to Use Your Crabapples?
If your crabapple tree bears fruit, you have the option of throwing away the fruit or using it for cooking. Some of the recipes you can make with crabapples include the following
- Crabapple Jelly – Most jelly recipes call for the use of sugar in the ingredients. Therefore, even if your crabapples are a bit on the sour side, you can change the flavor with sweetener.
- Pickle Crabapples – When you think about pickling vegetables and fruits, crabapples probably aren’t the first fruit or veggie you think about using in your recipe. However, pickled crabapples are fantastic for using as a decorative addition to dishes like cheesecakes and pies.
- Crabapple Sauce – If you enjoy applesauce with your pork roast or eisbein, then try making some crabapple sauce for your next meal. Add some cinnamon and sugar to the recipe, and you’ll have a delicious crabapple sauce that adds a magnificent flavor to the dish.
- Crabapple Butter – When processing your crabapples, you’ll notice that many varieties turn pink when blending. This color makes them the ideal ingredient for apple butter. Instead of going with the traditional yellow color of apple butter, the crabapples turn it pink and add a delicious tart-taste to the final product.
- Crabapple Jam – If you’re a fan of perseveres on your morning toast, then why not give crabapple jam a try? There are less natural sugars in crabapples, giving the jam a pleasant sweet and sour taste that’s marvelous in the morning.
Wrapping Up
Adding a few crabapple trees to your garden provides your yard with a visual aesthetic during the fall. The trees also serve to help pollinate other plants in the garden, as well.
The fruit from the tree is not toxic, and some species are fine to eat without any processing. There are dozens of crabapple recipes, and if you spend some time researching what’s on offer, you can find plenty of ways to use your harvest.