Mulled apple juice is a delicious, hot, non-alcoholic drink, that has a very festive and wintery smell! We often make it over the camp fire at forest school, but it's fantastic to make at home. If you have any left over, it will keep in the fridge for a few days - just let it cool down, and then pour it into a clean plastic bottle or large glass jar (we use the tall, glass passata bottles).
You add the same spices that you would add to mulled wine, and you can vary these depending on which ones you like!
What you will need:
A saucepan with a lid
One litre of apple juice - clear or cloudy, it doesn't have to be expensive, the basic stuff works well
Spices: you don't have to use all of these, but our recipe contained:
six whole cloves
a piece of cinnamon stick
six dried juniper berries
one star anise
you could add green cardamoms, but we didn't have any!
A few slices of fresh orange (optional)
How to make it:
Pour the apple juice into a saucepan
Add all of your spices, and slices of orange if you're using them.
Heat gently, until it's just simmering.
Simmer for at least 20 minutes, to let the spices infuse into the juice.
Serve by ladling into a mug.
You can leave the pan on a low heat for hours! We often leave a big pan of mulled apple on the campfire for the whole of our forest school session, so that people can help themselves!
As we're not doing forest school at the moment, we're making our mulled apple in a lovely enamel kettle, which sits on the woodburner all day...
If you have any left over, allow it to cool, then bottle it and put it in the fridge (you can take the spices out). It's lovely hot or cold!