White Currant Recipe – A Delicious Jelly
Currant jelly is a fantastic way to preserve fresh currants. If you grow your own fruit you will know that often get a glut at the height of the season, so making a jelly will ensure that the fruit will last for several months. A jelly is a fruit preserve that can be used as a delicious accompaniment to meat or cheese. Or you can slather it on a slice of buttered toast. The jelly from this white currant recipe is slightly savoury – we add ginger for warmth and chilli for heat, but you can omit these if you prefer.
You can make this jelly with white currants, blackcurrants or redcurrants. The white currant recipe is lovely because the white currants turn a delightful shade of pink. Whereas blackcurrants and redcurrants have distinctive flavours, white currants have a taste that is a lot more subtle . The currants have natural pectin, the setting agent, so you can make a lovely set jelly with just fruit and sugar – no need to add pectin.
Note for American readers: the preserve known as jelly and jello, jelly.
White Currant Jelly Recipe
Equipment You Will Need
Large preserving pan. If you don’t have a jam pan, a large casserole pot will be fine. Make sure it is deep because you will boil the jelly and you don’t want hot, sticky liquid spluttering all over your work surfaces and, worse, you.
Muslin sheets for straining the fruit
Jelly strainer. If you don’t have one of these you can use a sieve or colander lined with muslin.
Bowl to catch the jelly liquid
Weighing scales
Jam thermometer
Jars for storage – make sure you have sterilised them
Ingredients
1kg (35oz) white currants
330ml (1.1 fl oz) water (basically 3 parts currants to 1 part water)
Sugar – the quantity depends on how much juice you have. Have a kilo on hand, just in case.
Thumb sized piece of ginger and a couple of sliced and deseeded chillies (optional)
Method
Place the white currants and water in a pan.
Crush the berries with a spoon or potato masher to extract the juice.
Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 30 mins.
When the mixture has cooled pour it into a jelly strainer and let the juice drip through.
At this stage you want to wait for the juice to drip naturally for several hours, overnight if you can. Try not to squeeze the bag as some fruit pieces might come through which will make your jelly less perfectly clear.
If you remember, put a saucer in the fridge or freezer to make sure it is cold in the morning – it will be useful for checking the jelly setting.
Once you are convinced that all the juice has drained through the muslin, weigh it.
Add the micrograted ginger and chopped chilli to taste, if you have decided to use these.
Weigh an amount of sugar that is equal to the that of the juice. Add the juice back into the jam pan and add the sugar.
Dissolve the sugar and bring to a rolling boil. Boil the juice for at least 10 minutes and use the thermometer to check that the temperature reaches 104C. Skim off the froth if you can.
To test for a set, put blob of jelly on your cold saucer. If you get a wrinkle the jelly will set.
Let the mixture cool a little, then transfer into your sterilised jars. This jelly will last for several months.
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