Intersect
Purposeful Young Professionals
Tips for Jelly Making
Making fruit jellies is a real science, so thought I'd get the ball rolling on some good tips for beginners. There are some really involved scientific resources out there on the web, but let's keep it simple and practical!
1. Making sure the damn thing sets
1.(a) Make sure you're using the right fruit
Fruit should be picked when it's only just ripe if you want it to contain the best pectin (which makes the jelly set!). It's a balance between being unripe enough to contain the most pectin vs ripe enough to have fully developed its flavour.
Some types of fruit have naturally high or low levels of pectin:
High levels: apples, crab apples, quinces, plums, citrus fruits, cranberries, gooseberries, and sour blackberries and boysenberries.
Low levels: cherries, ripe blackberries, grapes, melons, peaches, pears, figs, apricots, elderberries, strawberries, raspberries, guava, and pomegranates.
Apparently kiwifruit and papayas also contain an enzyme that inhibits the effect of gelatine.
You can use fruit with low levels of pectin to make jelly so long as you either follow a recipe or add shop-bought pectin.
1(b) Altering recipes
Many recipes can be altered or completely made up, but you've got to have a pretty good idea of the mechanics of jelly setting to do so. If you're worried, stick to the recipe. If it fails, you can always buy some pectin and reboil your mess. Common recipe alterations are omitting shop-bought pectin or reducing the amount of sugar, either of which is doable but risky if you don't know what you're doing. If your fruit is low in pectin (see list above) or you're altering a recipe/making one up, here are some guidelines:
- Often it's the skin and seeds of a fruit that contain the most pectin, so always include them while boiling!
- You can add fruit with high pectin content (or just the seeds and peelings) to improve the chances of setting.
- Sugar is important for making the jelly set, and preserving it from nasty pathogens. It can be hard to tell if the amount of sugar in the recipe is really needed, or if the person writing it just had a sweet tooth/was being careful. Experiment, but not too much.
- Boiling the mixture for longer.
1.(c) Testing for setting point
Either:
- Coat the back of a spoon in the mixture, wait a few minutes, then run your finger through it and see if it has set.
- Drip the mixture onto a cold saucer and see if it sets after a few minutes.
2. Straining the jelly through muslin
Traditionally, great pride was taken in the clarity of the final jelly. If you want jelly of stained-glass clarity, the juice must not be forced through the muslin. That might mean:
- adding the mixture to the muslin in smaller batches to prevent the weight of the fruit pulp pushing the juice at the bottom through the muslin, and removing the pulp in between additions.
- Definitely no squeezing the bag! Leave the muslin bag/muslin-lined sieve to drip overnight.
- If you stir the pulp to let the juice move through the pulp, make sure you don't scrape the bottom or sides of the muslin.
Of course, that can equate to a lot of time and effort, leave you with less juice to make jelly with and I don't particularly care whether my jelly is clear or not. I squeeze the bag. However, if you squeeze the bag too thoroughly, you can force through too much fine pulp which will affect the texture and jellylike-ness of your jelly.
3. What to do with the leftover pulp?
Making jelly (or juicing for that matter) can seem rather wasteful, with all the leftover pulp. Also, there is a lot of fibre and nutrient loss that comes from separating the juice. You can't really use the pulp to make anything else because you've gone and taken out all its flavour.
You can either stick to making jams and chutneys, or settle with composting the pulp.
1. Making sure the damn thing sets
1.(a) Make sure you're using the right fruit
Fruit should be picked when it's only just ripe if you want it to contain the best pectin (which makes the jelly set!). It's a balance between being unripe enough to contain the most pectin vs ripe enough to have fully developed its flavour.
Some types of fruit have naturally high or low levels of pectin:
High levels: apples, crab apples, quinces, plums, citrus fruits, cranberries, gooseberries, and sour blackberries and boysenberries.
Low levels: cherries, ripe blackberries, grapes, melons, peaches, pears, figs, apricots, elderberries, strawberries, raspberries, guava, and pomegranates.
Apparently kiwifruit and papayas also contain an enzyme that inhibits the effect of gelatine.
You can use fruit with low levels of pectin to make jelly so long as you either follow a recipe or add shop-bought pectin.
1(b) Altering recipes
Many recipes can be altered or completely made up, but you've got to have a pretty good idea of the mechanics of jelly setting to do so. If you're worried, stick to the recipe. If it fails, you can always buy some pectin and reboil your mess. Common recipe alterations are omitting shop-bought pectin or reducing the amount of sugar, either of which is doable but risky if you don't know what you're doing. If your fruit is low in pectin (see list above) or you're altering a recipe/making one up, here are some guidelines:
- Often it's the skin and seeds of a fruit that contain the most pectin, so always include them while boiling!
- You can add fruit with high pectin content (or just the seeds and peelings) to improve the chances of setting.
- Sugar is important for making the jelly set, and preserving it from nasty pathogens. It can be hard to tell if the amount of sugar in the recipe is really needed, or if the person writing it just had a sweet tooth/was being careful. Experiment, but not too much.
- Boiling the mixture for longer.
1.(c) Testing for setting point
Either:
- Coat the back of a spoon in the mixture, wait a few minutes, then run your finger through it and see if it has set.
- Drip the mixture onto a cold saucer and see if it sets after a few minutes.
2. Straining the jelly through muslin
Traditionally, great pride was taken in the clarity of the final jelly. If you want jelly of stained-glass clarity, the juice must not be forced through the muslin. That might mean:
- adding the mixture to the muslin in smaller batches to prevent the weight of the fruit pulp pushing the juice at the bottom through the muslin, and removing the pulp in between additions.
- Definitely no squeezing the bag! Leave the muslin bag/muslin-lined sieve to drip overnight.
- If you stir the pulp to let the juice move through the pulp, make sure you don't scrape the bottom or sides of the muslin.
Of course, that can equate to a lot of time and effort, leave you with less juice to make jelly with and I don't particularly care whether my jelly is clear or not. I squeeze the bag. However, if you squeeze the bag too thoroughly, you can force through too much fine pulp which will affect the texture and jellylike-ness of your jelly.
3. What to do with the leftover pulp?
Making jelly (or juicing for that matter) can seem rather wasteful, with all the leftover pulp. Also, there is a lot of fibre and nutrient loss that comes from separating the juice. You can't really use the pulp to make anything else because you've gone and taken out all its flavour.
You can either stick to making jams and chutneys, or settle with composting the pulp.
Views: 252
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ron Eckman on -
Hi Kelly, thanks!! I've been learning heaps about jam and marmalade making and the setting bit has been the most difficult to get. Making marmalade today and will focus on your tips. Leanne
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Permalink Reply by Lotte Kellaway on -
Woah, jelly! This year I made so much jelly I melted my brain, and I have to admit that some carefully strained juice was left to go off before I could bring myself to boil it up with the sugar and bottle it... I did learn plenty though, so will try to compliment your handy hints Kelly...
1. My partner has a very unsweet tooth, so I found that I could happily get away with not adhering to the 'pound of sugar to a pint of liquid' rule from the trusty Jane Grigson recipe I had been using. I would usually put in 400g of sugar to 500ml of liquid, which meant it took a little longer to set, but was a little less sweet and had a lovely wobble to it. (I have since educated said partner that jelly is inherently sweet, and other condiments were probably more to his tastes).
2. Make it in small batches. Being faced with three litres of liquid and no jars at 9pm on a Sunday night is no fun. Don't enthusiastically fill your giant soup cauldron with feijoa skins and water. Find a normal sized pot and stick with that. I learnt this the hard way. Also, it is quicker to boil and reach setting point in small quantities, therefore almost instant gratification!
3. You can offset your feelings of being wasteful by using inedible fruit. Our apple tree was plagued by codlin moth, so these tiny apples had maybe a teaspoon each of usable flesh and skin. I made apple crumble with them once and it was a thankless task, but chopping out the mothy bits and not having to peel them made them very useful for jelly - they helped to set blackberry jelly by boosting the pectin. Saving the skins and cores of quinces and apples when making chutney gives a good stash for a batch of jelly. You can also start a container in the freezer for your feijoa skins to make jelly - they are higher in pectin than the flesh, so you have the joy of eating that and having the skin to use later, unless you are a weirdo like me and like eating the skins too.
4. Japonica apples. We discovered this fruit on a footpath in Raumati - it looks like a baby quince, and is only suitable for jelly as its flesh is dry and bitter. But as a jelly, whoar! We made an enormous amount of it, gave most of it away and only then discovered how delicious it was. My dad loved it with peanut butter, and had a look in his eye that said 'I am going to raid your pantry for your secret stash'. Fortunately for us, he did not act on this urge.
5. Jars are not the only vessel for your pretty work - little retro glass tumblers, or anything sturdy enough to withstand a trip to the oven for sterilisation, work well, and are just the right size for giving away. My jelly making efforts far outweighed my consumption of jelly, and with the big jars reserved for chutney, I had to get creative. The cellophane and rubber bands you can get for preserving will become your best friends.
6. And lastly, a failed batch of jelly is still tasty. A gelatinous feijoa flavoured syrup may not be something you want to give away, but added to your apple crumble it is delicious. Who cares if you didn't get a good set this time? You've learnt something for your next batch.
Hmm, I think I am reconciled with jelly... -
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