Autumn Mix Jelly

The rosehips (1 lb) and brambles (3/4 lb) went into the jelly bag Friday night, producing half a pint of juice. The crabapples (unweighed, but I guess about 1 1/2 lb) and half a pound of sloes were strung up last night. I decided to cheat this morning and squeeze the jelly bag - this if for home consumption only and a little cloudiness won't bother me. I combined the juice - a pint and a quarter in total.

My Margaret Patten recipe book advised to only stir until the sugar is dissolved and then boil hard without stirring. I decided to try this - previously I have kept stirring throughout.

There was a lot more scum doing it this way, but it was easy to remove the majority of it with a vegetable spoon without wasting too much of the jelly. Another tip in the book that worked well was dabbing the last of the scum with white paper kitchen roll. It was also a lot more relaxed in getting the saucers from the freezer to test for the setting point, and the jars from the oven when it was ready - which was a lot quicker than previously. Luckily I had just finished ladling it into the jars when the phone rang.

I then got back to the kitchen for the best part - scraping the jelly remains from the pan/ladle etc for tasting on a couple of cream crackers. It is scrummy...