Cooking For Engineers

[pbonefirst]

I tried to make red currant jelly from my own current bush, but I only harvested 2 lbs of currants, so I had to halve the recipe. I added one packet (3 oz) of natural sure-jell (HA!) Certo previum liquid fruit pectin and boiled for about 30 seconds. Did all the sterilizing and processing of jelly in the jars. Alas, the "jelly" is a delicious, fairly thick syrup. I only have four half pint jars (the little round ones) of this syrup, but I was thinking of pouring it all into a pan and reheating to a boil and then adding another packet of pectin. Would this work? If not, is there anything I could do? When I add pectin, may I stir it with a wooden spoon or whisk to distribute the pectin (I didn't before, as I was trying to follow instructions precisely and thought it might "break up" the pectin) Any help would be enormously appreciated, as I want to send one of these little jellies to my sweetie, who is in Afghanistan. Thank you in advance.

[Dilbert]

it's possible - see

http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/remake_soft_spreads/40.php

[pbone]

Thank you, Dilbert! That site was helpful, and I think I'm going to try it again. Jelly is the most complicated scientific effort I've ever made in the kitchen. BTW, I am actually a member, but when I put in my user name, Pbone, it said the name was already taken. Well, of course it is, I thought: that's ME!! Anyway, as a visitor (pbonefirst) I don't get emails alerting me to responses to a question I might pose. Do you think I should change my user name? Not quite sure how to navigate this little problem. Perhaps if you are not the manager of this website, you could pass it along? I'd give you my email, but I don't particularly want to publish it in cyberspace. Nice to be in touch again, and I'll post the results of my second try at red currant jelly. Thanks again - pbone/pbonefirst

[Dilbert]

your last did post under pbone, wonder if you were routed to the "Join" page vs. the LogIn page...

Michael will be the one to whack any bug on the software board software side - on your end I would suggest deleting the shortcut (if you are using one) and recreating to ensure the browser is going to the right place.

[Michael Chu]

[pbone]

Here I am, back to report on the success of my trying to re-jell the delicious red currant syrup my first effort yielded. The link Dilbert provided was extremely helpful, and I followed the instructions to the letter. The result was a perfectly set jelly! Thank you so much. Now, the down side. In my original effort, I cut the sugar a bit, as I like red currant jelly's natural tartness. Also, as I mentioned in my original post, I had to halve the recipe, because I didn't harvest 4 lbs of currants. The link Dilbert provided required an additional 3 T of sugar per cup of measured juice, and several teaspoons of lemon juice, as well as about a teaspoon of additional pectin per cup of juice. I added this, exactly as instructed, and the instructions clarified whether or not to stir the pectin in (do) and exactly how long to boil (1 minute), stirring vigorously during this phase. The final product was in fact a little too sweet, and the lemon juice, unfortunately, changed the taste of the red currants, subtly, but to my discerning taste, noticeably. I would still call this a success, however. IN THE FUTURE, I am going to use the directions in the link to make the jelly in the first place, as it gives the amounts of the addition of sugar, pectin and lemon juice (which I will leave out) PER CUP of strained fruit juice, so it is easy to have exactly correct proportions of sugar and pectin per cup of liquid for perfect jelling. Thanks again, Dilbert. I've turned a lovely syrup into an almost perfect jelly. The texture, the hardness of the set, is just perfect, and I can give it away feeling pretty proud!