Down Mulberry Lane

Violet Jelly... a tutorial

VIOLET JELLY?

Yes, indeed!  Violets are an edible flower and purple violets will make a beautiful pink-violet jelly.  Want to learn how?  Join us as we share our pictures from our violet jelly making adventure.

First, I will share the recipe that we used.  I searched for it online and found that there are several different ways to go about getting to the final recipe, but ultimately the recipe was the same, as far as ingredients go. 

Violet Jelly Recipe:

2 cups fresh violets

2 cups boiling water

juice of one lemon (4 tablespoons)

1 package of powdered pectin

4 cups sugar

Make an infusion with the violets and boiling water.  Pour water over the violet flower heads (remove stems if they have any).  Let sit anywhere from 2 to 24 hours (put in fridge if longer than 2 hours).  Drain liquid from flowers, squeezing to get every last drop of liquid for the recipe.  Add lemon juice.  (notice color change!)  Add one package of powdered pectin.  Bring to a boil.  Add four cups of sugar.  Bring to a second rolling boil.  Boil vigorously for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Skim foam, if necessary.  Ladle into jars.  Seal with paraffin wax OR can with lids and waterbath for 5 minutes (1/2 pint jars). 

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TUTORIAL

Our Violet Harvest!

Our yard happens to be filled with WHITE violets, and a few purple violets.  We picked about 1/4 of the white violets and all of our purple violets.  These are quart jars and you can see we got about 6 cups of white violets and about 3 cups of purple violets.  To make the infusion, there are various ways to make it, depending on how much jelly you plan to make.  (our white violet jelly was an experiment...white violets are edible as well, but we were unsure what color the jelly would end up being). 

Though we didn't try it, I would think you could double the recipe with NO trouble at all.  Alot of times you are not supposed to double the recipe, because it will interfere with the jelling aspect and often times not set up.  But the jelly we made was very thick, and because of that, I feel you could likely double the recipe without worry. 

Ok, back to the infusion.  One recipe said to fill a quart jar with flower heads (no stems) and cover completely with boiling water, all the way to the rim.  In the picture below, you will notice we did that with the white violets.  Other ways were to pack violet heads down to one cup and add 2 cups of boiling water.  Some just said, measure 2 cups of violet flower heads and add 2 cups of boiling water.  If you chose the full quart jar method, you measured out 2 cups of the liquid for the recipe.  If you measured the 2 cups of boiling water method, use simply used that liquid. 

As for preparation, many said none, just watch your flowers, make sure they are clean, bug free, etc.  One recipe said they rinsed their flowers, but I would recommend measuring out your flowers before rinsing as they wilt to nothing once wet.  We just looked at our flowers, we figured the boiling water and boiling with the jelly preparation would kill what we missed.  *grin*

Violets Infusing.

The set time to infuse was a minimum of 2 hours and a maximum of 24 hours.  We chose 24 hours for maximum color, since our purple violets were a mixture of true purples and crosses with whites (so less purple color).  The white violets made a murky yellow gray color.  The purple violets it was a murky blue color.

Strain Infusion.

(Don't we look so happy?  LOL)  Anyways, this is a picture of the white violets being strained.  We used a jelly bag.  You could also use cheese cloth.  Once drained, you still want to squeeze as much liquid out of the flower heads as possible for ultimate color and liquid for recipe. 

Squeeze Liquid.

This is a picture of the white violet infusion.  A yellowish-gray murky coloring of liquid.  Did we really want jelly out of this???  We were wondering about our experiment! 

Purple Violet Infusion.

Here you can see the purple violets makes a dark grayish greenish blue.  You don't really see the green in the photo.  In real life it looks more dirty like, lake water, just with blue in it. 

Add your lemon juice.  (notice the color change!)

Wow!  Wasn't that pretty? The liquid now should look pretty clear and ready to be jellied.  What about the white violet infustion?

Is it changing?

Oh my!  It did (thank goodness!)  LOL  It now looks like a grapefruit pink.  Once canned it looked light peach in color.

Add Pectin.

Now this step is one you may want to pay some attention to, for this is where our story goes bad.  LOL.  Don't just dump in the pectin.  It will thicken almost immediately, even before cooking it.  Pour it in slowly and stir evenly (but not too roughly to cause bubbles) to dissolve the pectin.  You can do this step in a pan on the stove before heating... to save the mess from transferring it to the pan as it will now stick to the bowl once it thickens.  (This we learned). 

Our mistake with the first batch was that the pectin went in all at once and was lumpy.  It created jelly that had thicker spots than others, although it all jelled, it was like gelatin in jelly.   Our second batch, we whisked it, after my daughter again dumped it in... *sigh*... and it created bubbles that would not even cook out.  This step ended up being crucial for our final result in jelly texture. 

Bring to a Rolling Boil.

You want to be sure the boil is big enough not to be pushed out with the spoon.  It should boil even with a quick stirring motion. 

Add Sugar.

Return to a rolling boil as in the step before.  This time let it boil for 1 minute.  stir constantly so that the sugar does not burn and that you are watching closely for it could easily overboil. 

Remove from Heat, Skim Foam, if needed.

Use a metal spoon to skim foam.  Why metal?  I found that the foam tends to cling easily to a metal spoon and it IS what is recommended in my canning books.

Ladle quickly, but carefully into hot prepared jars.

I realize this is not in the directions for the recipe, but it is a necessary step with canning.  Prepared jars are cleaned and then boiled for 10 minutes on top of the stove.  Keep the jars hot as you are preparing your jelly recipe.  Once ready to ladle, get your jars out and fill them.  This jelly we found was quite thick, and if you weren't careful, you could create bubbles along the sides of the jars.  Using a plastic utensil designed for removing bubbles may have helped, but this jelly was really thick for us.  My daughter took more time than I might normally with skimming and the jelly may have thickened more than had we filled the jars more quickly after removing from the heat. 

At this point, you want to clean the jar rims from any spilled jelly.  You can either opt to fill with hot paraffin wax to seal, or do as we did and seal with hot prepared lids (lids set in boiling water for one minute... I use the teapot and put my lids in a bowl.  I boil the water while making jelly.  When I add the sugar and am doing the last boil, I pour the water over the jar lids to help soften the rubber.)  I then put the 1/2 pint jars in for a 5 minute waterbath.  Recipe yield is 4 half pint jars.

Excuse my jars!  They still need their vinegar bath!  After canning, especially with waterbathing with hard water, you may get a residue on the outside of the jars.  Washing with a rag, wettened with vinegar, will shine up your jars.  I shared these photes so you could see the bubbles and clumping of the jelly.  In the violet colored jelly, it is not so much bubbles that you see, but rather thick gelatin areas of the jelly...which I was unable to cook out.  The white violet jelly, below, if you look closely has lots of tiny bubbles from us whisking, and we were unable to cook them out as well.   I hope to make another batch tomorrow and be able to add a finished photo of jelly gone right.  LOL. 

We hope that by sharing some of our goofs, you can prevent your own.  Jelly making is usually quite easy, but can have it's unexpected AAAAaaaacks!   Don't be afraid to try again!  You'll be glad you did!

Since this recipe is backwards from many I've tried before... I may try doing as I have before, which is to switch the order of the sugar and pectin.  Adding the sugar to the drained infusion and lemon juice mixture and boiling, then adding pectin and boiling for a full minute.  I imagine the result will be much better.  Adding the pectin too early just made it hard to work with.  With fruit jellies, you tend to use 3-5 cups of fruit juice or fruit and with flower infusions you use only 2 cups of liquid for the package of pectin.  (dandelion jelly recipes are very similar to this, and the one I tried last year has you adding the pectin after the sugar, not before, as well).   I will let you know how it goes by reversing the order of the recipe.  If it turns out, I will redo my tutorial to reflect the happier ending with the jelly. 

**I retried the recipe swapping instructions.  I found it did not set up.  However, I can see the pectin is still grainy inside the jar.  I made a second re-do batch and the pectin did the same thing...so I am thinking the pectin is bad (I bought a three pack).  I won't be able to retry again this season... my flowers are fading!  If you try, leave a comment and let me know how it went.   

Warmly, ~Melissa

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10:30 PM, May 12, 2008 .. Posted by glenda

Oh it looks great. I am going to have to find me some voilets for next year and plant them. I love the look of the jelly.
god bless
glenda

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7:58 AM, May 13, 2008 .. Posted by heritagehill

I have been wanting to try making this, so thanks for sharing your experiences.
Marilyn

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8:35 AM, May 13, 2008 .. Posted by stitchnchick

Wow, what a beautiful jelly! I don't think we have enough violets to be able to make a batch, but I may go hunting today just to see! Thanks for sharing.

Amy

Jelly

7:57 AM, May 16, 2008 .. Posted by MrsC

I usually have better results using the Certo instead of the powdered pectins with jelly. I am going to try the dandelion jelly recipe and try to do the violet next year. I just noticed a bunch of violets this season in the in-laws yard. I didn't really know what they were before now.

I make jelly and sell it at our farmers' market, so I am constantly looking for new and unusual recipes.