- Certified organic
- From orchards
- Regional from the Lower Rhine
- Sweet and sour - Aromatic - Delicious
Apfelkraut is the name for a sweet spread with a fine sour note, which traditionally comes from the Rhineland and the Belgian province of Liège or the Dutch province of Limburg.
It is apple juice, which is obtained from apples that have been steamed beforehand and then boiled down until it has a syrupy consistency, which changes to a jelly-like state when it cools down due to the pectin it contains.
Depending on the recipe, a proportion of pear juice is often added to the apple juice to further refine the unique aroma.
We source our apple syrup from the
Berkhöfel farm in the Lower Rhine region, which only uses 70% old apple and 30% old pear varieties from its own orchards. Depending on the variety and harvest year, around three kilos of fruit are needed for one kilo of apple syrup.
Immediately after harvesting, the apples and pears are processed in the traditional Belgian
Siroperie Artisanale d'Aubel, where the Nyssen family has been producing apple syrup since 1757, now in its 12th generation.
You can taste this expertise in every bite of this sweet and sour delicacy.
While apple syrup is a sweet delicacy today, it used to be a necessity to preserve apples for the winter.
This was usually a matter of the whole village coming together to use the communal apple press, extract juice and then process it into long-lasting, delicious apple syrup.
The aromatic apple syrup from Hof Berkhöfel tastes particularly good on
brown bread from the Lower Rhine. In our blog section you will of course find a recipe for baking it.
If you are interested in more information about Biohof Berkhöfel, you can find the first part of an interview with managing director Hendrik van Aken at the following
link.