Violet Jelly

This post was actually from 5th April 2011 - last retrospective post!

Well, I was quite desperate to make some of this.  I thought of it a month or so back.  I was musing over what to do with a large bowl of Bramleys while strolling past a little crop of wild violets, and had a bit of a eureka moment.  So I hurried home and went a-googlin’, only to find that there is a multitude of methods and approaches.

As I said before, the scent of violets, although strong and quite beautiful, is fleeting.  It turns out that this is because there is something in the smell which actually anaesthetises your olfactory organs, and prevents you from being able to smell it after the first whiff.  Amazing.  Anyway.  I was a little worried that the flavour would be equally ephemeral, so decided not to make an apple-based jelly as I had originally intended.  Further research was not terribly helpful - the amount of pectin required to set a jelly varies according to the amount of pectin naturally present in the fruit.  As I think it’s safe to assume that there’s no pectin in violets, I wasn’t sure how much to add.  Lots of panicking and brain-wracking later, and this is what I did.  Oh, and it worked.  Oh, and wash the violets first...

YOU WILL NEED:

Enough wild violets - preferable violet ones, not white - to fill a pint pot when tightly packed

Water

Preserving sugar

Bottle of Certo liquid pectin

Lemons

Place the violets in a large jug and cover with two pints of boiling water.  Allow to steep overnight.

In the morning, strain the violet tisane through a sieve lined with kitchen paper, coffee filter or similar.  Add lemon juice and watch the colour change - magic!  Bring the violetty lemony water and the pectin to the boil in a large saucepan then add two pints of preserving sugar (just pour into a measuring jug - basically, you need the same amount of sugar as liquid, and this amount was perfect for a whole bottle of Certo.  You could halve or double it etc) and boil for two minutes on a full rolling boil.

Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Only allow your daughters to see one jar at a time or the lot will be gone within a week!

A note about sterilising jars:  worrying about this stopped me from making preserves for ages.  I don’t know why.  These days I either put jars and lids in a big saucepan, pour boiling water over them and simmer for ten minutes, or, if I’ve had the oven on for something anyway, put them in the oven at about 120 for about the same length of time, and that’s it.  No drama.