Barberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Combine barberries and cold water in a pot and boil for 15 minutes.
Bruise the barberries with the back of a wooden spoon.
Strain the mixture through a muslin strainer or jelly bag to extract the juice.
Make the jelly
Once the juice is clear, weigh it and boil it rapidly for 10 minutes.
Stir in an equal weight of sugar until dissolved, then boil the jelly again for 10 minutes.
Skim off any foam and pour the jelly into warm jars or glasses to prevent breaking.
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
- Barberries
- Provide the tart flavour and natural pectin that help the juice set into jelly.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and, boiled with the juice, helps it set firm and keep.
- Cold water
- Extracts juice from the barberries during the initial simmer.
The step that matters
Stir in an equal weight of sugar until dissolved, then boil the jelly again for 10 minutes.. The sugar must fully dissolve before the final boil, otherwise crystals can form. The jelly needs to reach a high enough sugar concentration and temperature to gel when cooled.
“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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