Jelly Time!

I did a similar post last year when the red currants and black currants were in season, and thought I'd do  another one this year with some instructions in case anyone wanted to try their hand at the art of jelly making.  The first step is getting the fruit.  We have a terrific, local farmer's market in G-town on Saturdays, so I know the fruit is fresh, very important in the process.  I bought two quarts of Black Currants, two quarts of Red Currants and two pints of gooseberries.  As a child/young adult, my mother grew Gooseberry bushes in our garden, so I have a particular fondness for them, but they are difficult to find, so I jumped at the chance to get them.

Red Currants washed and ready for boiling.

Gooseberries freshly washed.

Because Jellies remind me of my mother and England, I used a recipe from one of her old cookbooks, "Practical Cookery for All".  It doesn't have a date inside, but I figure it's from the late 50's or early 60's due to the retro photos of the food and decorations.  THAT will definitely have to be in another blog post. Stay tuned.

I used this recipe, more or less, for all three Jellies

Home-made jelly is basically fresh fruit and sugar boiled together. The important thing to remember is that it needs to jell or set, otherwise, you're making sauce. The jelling depends on the presence of pectin, a natural gum-like substance contained in the fruit, and acid. The amount of pectin and acid differs amongst fruit and depends on the degree of ripeness - acid decreases as fruit ripens and natural sugars increase.  The amount of pectin is greatest when fruit is just ripe.  Okay, so enough science, and on to the fun part.

Black Currant mash giving up its juice.

Red Currant mash in fine sieve.

Red Currant juice coming out of the jelly bag.

I washed the fruit in a stainless steel colander in the sink and picked out all the rotten fruit, bugs (one stink bug and two Asian beetles, may they rest in pieces) and leaves.  Leave the stalks as they are easy to remove later on.  Don't worry about drying the fruit off, just dump it all into a large, roomy pot (I never use a preserving pan), add the appropriate amount of water and slowly bring up to a boil. Once the fruit starts to "pop", I use an old-school potato-masher to get a nice slurry out of it.  At this point, your kitchen will be filled with the aroma of summer. I have two methods for extracting the juice from the pulp.  One is using a conical-shaped, very fine sieve over a saucepan, and the other requires a linen jelly bag, an elastic band and a deep, Mexican glass pitcher (sounds like the start of a joke, no?). The jelly bag can be blocked more easily, so I ladle out as much pure juice from the mash into that before I add the more fibrous part.  The fine sieve was an experiment and seemed to work just fine.  You don't want any solids in the juice as it can effect the clarity of the jelly.  Also, pushing down on the fruit is inadvisable as it also affects clarity.  Let gravity do its thing for a couple of hours, then measure the amount of juice extracted.

Two cups, which equals one pint.

Black Currant juice remnants - VERY sour, needs sugar!

At this point, I prepare the mason jars for canning.  I like the 125 mL size as they make great gifts, but I also get the wide-rimmed 250 mL jars as they have a great shape and look to them.  I just set up a large pot of water to boil, add the glass jars, let them boil for 10-15 minutes, then dry them in a baking dish in the oven, set at 250 C. Once the jars are in the oven, I add the lids to the boiling water and turn off the heat. Bring the measured fruit juice to a gentle boil, add the required amount of sugar, and boil rapidly for the required time. If any scum forms on the surface, skim it off, unless of course, you like scum. I don't prefer it myself. I find the Black Currant juice is thicker and requires less boiling, say 10-15 minutes, whereas the Red Currant juice is more watery and requires longer boiling.  To give you and idea, 2 quarts of Black Currants yielded 2 cups of juice, but 2 quarts of Red Currants yielded 3 1/2 cups of juice. To test for jelling, add a few drops of the molten, sugared juice (care is required here!) to a teaspoon and put it in the refrigerator. After 5 minutes or so, it should be sticky and semi-liquid.  If not, continue boiling. Once it's ready, I take the pan of heated mason jars out of the oven, and use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to fill the jars.  Once they are all filled, I use tongs to take the caps out of the hot water and gingerly flip them over onto the filled jars.  I then quickly grab the jars with the tongs and tighten the lids.  I tighten them more as they cool. There is nothing like the pop of a mason jar lid once it has created the proper vacuum.

Summer in a jar!

L. to R. - Red Currant, Black Currant, Gooseberry Jelly.

The Gooseberry Jelly was more involved as I didn't have a proper recipe for it, and ended up adding too much water to make the mash.  No problem really, as I just boiled it longer before and after adding the sugar.  Once I canned it, it stayed liquid until it cooled down and then, magically, jelled. It does feel like alchemy sometimes.

Last year, I made Red and Black Currant Jellies and the red was considerably more runny, whereas the black was much more paste-like. Methinks it's a pectin thing. If there's any more fruit at the market next Saturday, I'm going to try my hand at flavoured jelly - Gooseberry Mint?  Hot Pepper Red Currant?  Once you have the basics down, your imagination is the limit.