Foraging Blossom Jelly

The boys are constantly picking flowers in that enthusiastic way little kids have. Amongst the plethora of flowers I started thinking maybe we should take advantage of this and make something….then I saw a post showing how violets start out as a dark blue infusion but the infusion “magically” transforms into a brilliant purple when lemon juice is added. Sounds like fun and even if the jelly wasn’t a hit at least we’d have a little experiment to do. Hence this:

turned into this:

The process is simple- cover the petals in an equal amount of boiled water and let sit for several hours or in the fridge overnight. I used a cup of petals for the violet and apple jellies and a half of a cup of petals for the dandelion. Strain and add lemon or lime juice, sugar and pectin. Cook as you would for any jelly/ follow your pectin’s instructions. I used Pomona pectin.Basically use the petal water/infusion as if it were juice.

My gift bearers/ helpers turned into eager taste testers. They wanted to eat the whole thing like a bowl of jello (BTW-that’s actually a second jar that was only partly filled).

It was so good ( delicate and decidedly floral) I started pondering “what other blossoms could we try and will they look and taste as awesome?” Two obvious potentials were dandelions and apple blossoms. I had made some really good apple peel jelly before but blossoms would be even easier and they’re free.

I was hoping the dandelion jelly would be a brilliant yellow but once I started the infusion I stopped worrying about the color and started just hoping it wouldn’t taste awful. Even though I cut the green part off the dandelion blossoms started smelling like cooked spinach the second the boiling water hit them.I almost didn’t even try it out but I figured a half mini batch wouldn’t be too big a waste and at least we’d have tried it. It was actually really good.

The apple blossoms smelled wonderful- almost rose like. The petals turned, unsurprisingly, brown. It tastes like apple jelly but just a touch flowery too. Here they are lined up left to right: dandelion, violet, and apple blossom.

Hmm I wonder how hibiscus jelly would taste….

mossy_stone

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