North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Pat Armstrong" <rancher@carolina.rr.com>]

Ginda, my Mother used to make crabapple jelly like this, she added 100% 
apple juice and sugar (lots of sugar,) no water, to the strained out 
juice--works just fine.  She also made grape jelly from frozen concentrate 
once...lol.

BTW & IMHO the older "Joy of Cooking" editions are a treasure trove of how 
to make stuff from scratch, jelly and preserves included.



zone 8b
Pat

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ginda Fisher" <list@ginda.us>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 7:14 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] currant preserves and plant productivity.


> On Jul 2, 2010, at 6:01 AM, Alan Haigh wrote:
>
> > First I want to say how I make preserves with black currants. . .
> > I just take the berries that I froze back when it was too hot and hectic 
> > to stand over a stove and throw them in a pot and let them thaw.  Then I 
> > stir while bringing them up to a boil while adding sugar to taste (lots 
> > of sugar!).  Once they get to boiling I take them off the stove, mash 
> > them, let the mash cool and they're done.  The jam (not preserved) will 
> > last in the fridge for at least 2 months, bigger batches require freezing 
> > some of it.
>
> I just made red currant jelly.  I follow the recipe in an old "Joy of 
> Cooking".  In the past I've had trouble with the texture, I think because 
> there's too much pectin.  This year I tried adding some water and more 
> sugar (I used 1 part sugar to 1 part juice, plus some added water.)
>
> Oh - I start by making juice, because I like a clear jelly instead of 
> seedily preserves.   To do that, I put all the fruit in a pot, crush it so 
> that the bottom of the pot is wet, and cook slowly until all the skins 
> turn translucent (instead of transparent) and I have a wet mass.  Then I 
> pass it through a fine sieve, sometimes using cheese cloth.  (the cheese 
> cloth, which must be pre-wetted, gives a clearer jelly, but I generally 
> don't bother.)  I am always disappointed at how much less juice there is 
> than there was fruit, but 4 cups of juice makes a lot of jelly.
>
> So this year I had 4 cups of juice, I added a cup of water and 4 cups of 
> sugar.  I cooked it until it reached the "jelly" stage and bottled it, 
> giving me 4 bottles of jelly.
>
> First, adding the water was a waste of time and energy - I just boiled it 
> off again.  (So I guess it wasn't all that much too much pectin.)  Second, 
> adding more sugar did cure my "too chewy" issue, but it resulted in jelly 
> which is too sweet for my tastes.  So I'm thinking of either aiming for 
> too-soft jelly next year, or adding some other fruit juice.
>
> My jelly, made more-or-less like this, has always stored fine for a year 
> or more in the fridge.  At least, it doesn't mold, and no one has dropped 
> dead.
>
> Ginda
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