Friday, April 6, 2012

Wild Violet and Dandelion Jelly 2012

The Internet here at the homestead seems to be back to normal for now. Yippee!! With our deprivation we're all having a bit of a struggle sharing computers/online time what with everyone wanting to get caught back up with their usual online activities. The kids computer is down from a virus and we're not sure what we're going to do about that. It wouldn't be such a dilemma if we knew where the restore disk was.  :-(

Anyway...

Finally, the Wild Violet and Dandelion Jelly pictures I've been promising...

The Wild Violet Jelly turned out beautifully.  To read about the actual ingredients and how to process go here to 5 Orange Potatoes blog.  The pictures there are much better than mine!!  ;-)

Beautiful!!  Like a jewel!!

This is 6 cups of de-stemmed flowers. It was enough for 3 batches of jelly.
The violets are extra vivid this year.  So pretty!!

The strained liquid after steeping in boiling water overnight.
Beautiful blue-green (mostly green)

After adding the sugar and before the lemon juice.
Very greenish looking.

Wow!  A dramatic change after adding the lemon juice.
It turns a purple color from the chemical reaction.

I used concentrated lemon juice from a bottle this time and was not pleased with the strong, lemony taste that it leaves in the jelly. I've only used fresh squeezed before and thought that I could just substitute for the concentrated. I won't be doing that again!!  I love the subtle lemon flavor of the fresh squeezed rather than the overwhelming concentrated one.

This was the first time that I made Dandelion Jelly.  Sadly, I used the concentrated lemon in that too but it doesn't seem as strong since the dandelions have a stronger taste than the violets.  I did make the mistake of squeezing the pulp of the dandelions which made the jelly a bit cloudy.  I didn't think anything about it until I noticed how cloudy it was and then the lightbulb went off.  I remember reading some time ago about not squeezing the liquid out of the pulp but to let it drain naturally.  :-)  Live and learn.

Looks and tastes like honey.

The dandelion florets without the bitter greens

The steeping dandelions.

The liquid solution did not have any color changes like
the violets did and remained basically the same color
throughout.

The dandelion jelly still hasn't jelled up properly--even at over a week later.  I've read that others have had this problem too.  I'll give it some more time and then rebatch if I have too.  It's way too good to let it go to waste. 

1 comment:

Fruitful Harvest said...

I have wanted to try Wild Violet jelly for a few years now!

I saw it on a few other blogs. We do not have that plant here! :(

I love the color its so pretty!

I am borderline gestational diabetic.
So no sweet for me! I was have jelly on my morning toast but they say NO sweets until after baby! I guess trying to grow a smaller baby is a good motivation!

Peace, Love and Prayers,
Georgiann

PS I hope you had a great Easter!