Old Fashioned Jelly and Jam

Here is a recipe in a nutshell;

If you make jelly you need to strain the juice from the fruit. If you make jam either grind or mash the fruit depending on the kind. You can add apple chunks or apple juice as
this gives you pectin which is a natural gel for the fruit.

1 cup of fruit
1 / 4 cup chopped apples or apple juice
1 / 2 cup to 1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)

Use a thick bottom pot

This is just a small sample batch to show you the basics.
I put frozen berries that I bought at the grocery store, and added
1 / 2 an apple for the pectin. You can of course buy pectin in a box,
but this is the old fashioned way.
Cook for about 20 minutes. The thick bottom pot is important or it will stick or burn.
An alternative is to cook it in a double boiler.

Strain the berries and apple in cheese cloth in a strainer. Later I will use a potato
masher to get all the juice I can. If you have a lot of berries and you want a clear
jelly you may want to omit this step.

I then added the sugar to the juice and simmered it for 10 minutes or so until the
syrup sheets on this dish that i am holding sideways. Of course if you are doing a
big batch you may need to simmer quite a bit longer.

Just let it cool and you have a nice jam or jelly and it is soooo flavorful! Plus you
get to feel you stepped back 100 years when this was done for the winter months.

Here is a recipe for old fashioned Grape Jelly

Arianne makes Jelly now with Pectin, Here is a simple recipe

3 pounds elderberries
juice of 1 lemon
1 box fruit pectin
4 1/2 cups sugar

Heat the berries over a low fire until the juice starts to flow and then simmer the fruit for 15 minutes. Strain the liquid through a double layer of cheesecloth (easier if you cook the fruit in the evening and let it drain overnight). Mix the elderberry and lemon juices along with just enough water to make three cups of fluid. Add the pectin, bring the mixture to a boil and stir in the sugar. Bring the jelly to a full boil again for one minute, pour it into sterilized glasses and cover the jars with paraffin.

links and more recipes

Old Fashioned Elderberry Jelly	Spiced Apples

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