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Dessert

Grape Jelly

A preserve made by cooking grape juice with sugar until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Grape Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Mash the berries to remove the skins.

  2. Pour the mashed berries into a preserving kettle and cook slowly for a few minutes to extract the juice.

  3. Strain the mixture through a colander and then through a jelly bag while keeping it hot.

Make the jelly

  1. Measure the juice and add 1 pound of loaf sugar for every pint of juice.

  2. Boil the mixture rapidly for at least 30 minutes.

  3. Test a small amount; if it seems done, remove it and pour into glasses.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Berries
Provide the juice and natural pectin that gives the jelly its set and flavor.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and, with the cooked juice, helps the jelly gel and keep.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly and test for doneness. Jelly sets only when enough sugar and pectin are concentrated by boiling. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or dull, so testing a small amount before pouring matters.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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