Beautiful jellies, not only are they easy to make but their finished splendor can make you feel like you accomplished something wonderful, not only food, but art. The light cascading through a handcrafted jelly is your own personal stained glass window. What is suspended in the rich jewel colours of a grape jelly? Love? Laughter? Could be. Mostly it’s grape particles. Sorry, that’s very anticlimactic.
Let’s explore the jelly making process shall we? This fall I have made apple jelly, grape jelly and cranberry jelly. The pictures in this post are from the apple jelly, but the process is much the same for all the jellies.
First we have your fruit. These apples are from behind the barn at my parent’s home. Who knows what kind they are, the tree has lived in a fence row since the dawn of time and thrives on neglect. “Free range, organic” apples. They are firm, not too sweet but not too tart either and their flesh doesn’t brown easily. Woo hoo! We are off to a great start.