Whilst waiting for my 2lbs rose hips to finish steaming this morning I thought I would have a quick check on recipes on internet for rose hip jelly. I'm slightly OCD so always double check recipes and ingredients - this often leads to doubts and questions - I'm a fool to myself really.
Anyhoo.........I discovered recipes for rose hip jelly that use:
1) rose hips, sugar, lemon juice and pectin
or
2)rose hips, sweet apples, lemon zest/juice, sugar (cottage smallholder is one)
or
3) rose hips, crab apples or cookers, lemons, sugar
Some use 3 x apples to rose hips and some 2 x apples to hips.
Now I thought you had to use apples with high pectin content to help get the jelly to set and that sweet apples were low in pectin, so that confused me.
Also which sugar do you prefer when making jellies? is there any difference between cane sugar and sugar from beet. Pam Corbin of River Cottage fame suggests that a refined white sugar is best for delicate fruits and berries, jellies, curds and flavoured liquers. She notes that Sugar from Beet in Britain (Silver Spoon) is intensively refined. And that Golden granulated is better for marmalades, and strong flavour fruit as it keeps its golden colour and delicate flavour.
So now then - my rosehips have steamed and produced 600ml of concentrated juice. I am now going to boil the pulp left in the steamer with a little bit of water and strain this through a jelly bag to extract as much juice left as possible. I'm hoping for at least another 300 ml then tonight I will steam the apples to get juice from them and add to rose hip juice and make my jelly tomorrow
What ingedients do you find produces the best results for your rose hip jelly?
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
These are interesting points you raise. I was under the impression that all apples are high in pectin so tend to use cookers when I don't want an apple flavour in the final product, sweet apples if I do. You need the acidity of the lemons along with the heat to activate the setting properties of pectin. Further my understanding is that pectin levels are always higher in unripe fruit and it decreases markedly in overripe fruit.
As to sugar, we found a difference in taste between sugar made from beet and that made from cane. It was most noticeable to us when recreating preserves we knew from back in South Africa, where only cane sugar is available. We prefer the cane sugar but I suspect that this will differ from person to person. As a rule the difference is less noteable in pickles.
In its fully refined 100% pure state, sucrose should not taste any different from source to source, however it is the little impurities that are part of a particular process and the source of sugar which add those different nuances. Like most of the differences, each nation is used to its own taste profile- milk chocolate is a prime example- having tasted the same Cadbury milk chocolate bar made in different countries across the globe, I would prefer the UK verison, because it tastes how I expect it to, so the same with sugar. Cane sugar is still available in the UK from Tate and Lyle.
Are we having fun yet? I am!
Maura...you really do need to chill out a bit, you should come and watch my haphazard methods of jam production, it would frighten you to death ( I would insert Smiley face here if I'd learnt the technique for iPads, but haven't, so can't)
Anyway, I tend to use the recipe from my river cottage cottage preserves book, but I only made the jelly once, and it didn't have a particularly good set to it, most of the time I make rose hip syrup, which I love in hot water as a drink reminiscent of my childhood.
I tend to use Tate and Lyle fair trade cane sugar, but that's just because that's what I can get in large bags at our local supermarkets, I agree with Martin that the taste different would be negligible. I occasionally use soft brown or golden in recipes for darker marmalades as they do add an additional depth of flavour, and tend to use dark brown or molasses ( which ever is cheapest) in my chutneys.
I know Jan - I'm a born worrier and I have got worse since I packed up work. I have this over active brain which will find something to think/worry/ponder over until it has exhausted all the possibilities. I even drive myself mad
My son is the same and I am always telling him to chill out which is a laugh isn't it?
If I can immerse myself in a good book or get stuck into the knitting I am fine - I just have to make sure I have covered all the angles to ensure I get it right. Not sure if there is a cure for it, but definitely always been like this. I blame my Mum - she wasn't a lady who dished out compliments very often so consequently I spent all my life trying to please her and worryng that I could have done better. Now my son has 2 boys who he praises all the time, which I thought was a bit excessive, but you couldn't wish for 2 more confident little lads so he must be doing something right.
I promise I'll try to chill out and just enjoy the jam making instead of analysing it to death - but thanks for the answers anyway.
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
Pleased your trying anyway Maura, my other half has a slight OCD tendency and it drives me nuts at times, however it doesn't drive him nuts as its a subconscious thing, thank goodness, when you are aware of your problems it must make it 10 times worse....however I'm perfect so have no such worries!
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