Both Black or Red currant jellies are a wonderful condiment to have on hand.
Black or Red Currant Jelly
Black or Red Currant Jelly
For spreading on toast, scones or in stews and sauces. I don’t personally use this for eating, I find it invaluable as a condiment and use it in stews and sauces. It’s particularly useful when cooking game or wild fowl. In the Nordic region it’s often served with roasted game.
Read the whole recipe and my notes before beginning!!!!!!!!! Remember that jelly sugar (gelesukar) is not jam making sugar (sylttsukar), that is different. Gelesukar has more pectin in it.
Black or Red Currant Jelly
This recipe is originally American and I have converted the weights to metric. They are not exact, you will find it a few grams off here and there but not enough to make any difference at all.
You will need - berries- plain white sugar - jelly sugar (gelesugar) and lemon juice.
Instructions
- Begin by heating the oven up to 120 degrees and put your jars and caps in to sterilize they have to be in for at least 20 minutes. Unless you have a pot for steaming them. Be sure everything you use is as sterile as possible, wash bowls and spoons with hot soapy water and dry with a fresh clean towel.
- Take a small plate and put it in the fridge, you will need it later to test your jelly.
- Wash the berries well and remove the stems they will make the jelly bitter.
- It’s better to make two small batches rather than one big one. So this is for 2 pounds or 1 kilo of berries.
- I started with 2 pounds (1Kilo) For each pound of berries add 1 cup of water - so 1 kilo will take would be 472 milliliters water.
- Boil for about 30 minutes until the berries become a mush.
- Remove from the heat and pass through a regular mesh kitchen strainer. Press the fruit through the strainer to extract as much liquid as possible, don't for get to scrape the bottom of the strainer to get the good stuff.
- At this point you will have the liquid with some bits of brown from the berries which will look terrible later when you put it in jars.
- To avoid this toss out what’s in the strainer and wash it out then strain again. Strain just letting the liquid pass through and you will see all the little brown bits that are on the end of each berry. You can press a little but the idea is to get rid of those little brown stems, so not too much.
- Measure the liquid in a measuring jug For every 2 cups (472millilters) of liquid add 1/2 pound of jelly sugar (gelesugar) and 1/2 pound plain white sugar. In metric for every (472millilters) liquid, use 448grams of gelesukar and 448 grams of plain white sugar).
- Put the liquid into a clean pot and add the sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice for every 2 cups of liquid. Or 4tbsp of lemon juice for every liter.
- As the liquid comes up to a boil a white scum will appear on the top of the berries. Remove this with a spoon. It will cloud the jelly and you won't have that beautiful blue-black color.
- Bring to a rolling boil for at least 3 minutes and it should boil like Mount Vesuvius, a real molten rolling boil. You will have to stir it a bit to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pot. Watch it now really carefully or it will boil over and you will have jelly all over your kitchen!!!!!! Taste it now and if it’s too sweet, you can add a tablespoon or two of lemon juice more.
- Remove from the stove and do a jelly test. Take the small plate out of the fridge. Place a couple of drops of jelly on the cold plate. When the jelly gets cold, use your finger to push the jelly across the plate a little (a couple of millimeters) and if it wrinkles it’s got enough pectin in it to set. Black currents have quite a lot of pectin on their own, using half jelly sugar (gelesugar) should give it the little extra that it needs
- Pour the jelly into your sterilized jars and cap right away, this will create a vacuum and help the jelly stay in the fridge for at least 6 to 7 months. I have kept this for a year in the fridge and it has always been fine do to the high sugar content and good sterilization or the jars and equipment.
Notes
This recipe is for a making it quickly and easily. The other (old) way is to use a cloth or jelly bag and leave the fruit for up to 24 hours to drain through the cloth to get the juice. It produces an absolutely clear jelly. The quick way does the job in just a couple of hours and produces a jelly which is perfectly good, you wouldn't sell it as homemade were people expect perfectly clear jelly. This is certainly clear enough for me.
A note about strainers. There are the cheap ones you buy at ÖB or the very fine ones that you use for sauces, you want the cheap one. It shouldn't be too fine.
Jelly sugar (gelesugar) you can find at ICA it’s not Sylttsugar, that is different.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
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