Best Fruit Jelly Ever!
by
After you read the lengthy list of ingredients in commercial jelly mixes, you’d think it was hard to make.
Not so!
All you need are four ingredients: juice, water, sugar, and agar agar. And all it takes is the time it takes to boil water and keep it bubbling for two minutes. That’s it!
First, here’s a how-to video for you. The recipe is just below.
INGREDIENTS
- 1-1/4 cups juice (see notes, below)
- 3/4 cups water
- 1/4 cup cane sugar, or whichever kind you prefer
- 1/2 teaspoon agar agar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Measure out juice.
- Add water to bring liquid up to 2 cups.
- Stir in sugar.
- Mix in agar agar.
- Bring it all to a boil, stirring often.
- Once it boils, time it to boil for a full two minutes, stirring frequently.
- After two minutes, remove it from the heat and pour into serving or storage containers.
- Chill well until set, about two hours or so.
IMPORTANT
- Ensure your juice is very good quality, and has no additives, including Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, or sugars/sweeteners.
- Choose a fruit juice that will have strong flavours. Oddly, I was very disappointed with a black cherry that I tried, but I might experiment with it some more.
- Use whichever sugar pleases you. I’ve only used beet sugar and cane sugar, and both work fine.
- Experiment with different juices before you really need to have it succeed. On occasion, I find a brand or a flavour needs more agar agar, in which case I bump it up to 3/4 teaspoon.
EA’s NOTES
Figuring out how to make jelly was a key obstacle to solving how to make trifle, our annual Christmas dessert. Once I cracked this puzzle, the rest was almost easy to work out! I’ll post the whole thing in the site one of these days… (Think: Seven different parts!)