You would not believe how disproportionately and ridiculously excited I am by the recipe I found yesterday! I have managed to combine my two major interests in life: cider and jam. Yes - I made Aspall's Suffolk Cyder Jelly, isn't it pretty? I can now retire fulfilled.
Cyder Jelly.
2 pints dry cider (or cyder, depending on how whimsical you're feeling)
3lb 4oz sugar
1 bottle Certo.
Put the cider and sugar into a jam pan and stir over a lowish heat til the sugar has dissolved. Add the Certo, bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 minute. Pot up in the usual way. Makes nearly 7 jars.
It's soooo easy and quick to make, a really good starting point for jammy novices. I find working with Certo a tad disconcerting. It looks deceptively liquid in the jar, but when you dig around with a spoon (at least 24hrs later) it's actually a gorgeously voluptuous, yielding set. Compare to sloe jelly which has tons of natural pectin but a really glossy, bouncy set.
It tastes quite dry and grown up (unsurprisingly!) In the name of research I ate it with stilton and oat cakes which was delicious beyond description, the ultimate Ploughman's Lunch (providing the ploughman in question didn't have too much to do that afternoon) I'm also imagining pork neck steaks, browned in a pan with onions and apple, splash of stock and apple juice and a generous dollop of Cyder Jelly, cover and simmer til the meat is cooked through. Remove the meat and stir a dollop of creme fraiche into the sauce. Mmmmmm. When/if the snow clears I'll be visiting Goodies Farm Shop to put it to the test.
Now of course, I want to try Mulled Cyder Jelly, Peronelle's Blush Jelly, Red wine Jelly - in the words of Katie Price "It's a whole new world".
This sounds glorious!
ReplyDeleteWill be giving this a go! (link to Goodies broken by the way)
ReplyDeleteYes...I think I may be trying this when I get back to blighty....cider is not easy to find here and I have NO idea how I would go about looking for certo????? what is it?
ReplyDeleteGoodies link is fixed, not sure what went wrong there. Thanks for letting me know!
ReplyDeleteSue - Certo is a brand name for commercial pectin, I get it in Tesco.
Looks and sounds delicious. Must try it (save us some).
ReplyDeleteThe meat dish sounds delicious beyond words.
Not sure I want to give this a try as I'm not a huge fan of cider...but then again it is so simple and none messy to make compared with all other Jellies...mmmmm...what to do????? It is a very pretty colour...is it just the way the light falls or are they all slightly different shades???...sod it I have a friend who loves cider so I will give it a go but halve the quantities...you got me hooked!!!! Incidentally when is your next radio appearance????
ReplyDeleteHi Tanya,
ReplyDeleteThe colour change is just because there is one jar infront of the other, making it look darker.
While looking for this recipe I came across quite a few red wine jellies, made the same way but with red wine instead of cider so that may be worth a try. I'm imagining it with camembert - best that's lush.
Have you come across Aspall's Peronelle's Blush? It's cider with blackcurrent liqueur in it, v nice, you may prefer it if you're not keen on cider alone.
Not sure about the radio - not heard anything from them since, maybe when the full on foraging season rolls around again. Seems like a long way off in this snow though!