I don’t use the green parts, and sometimes add whatever ripe peppers I have; lately piquillo, Fresno, Corno di Toro.
Frozen peppers for jelly , on the right
I’ve tried a variety of liquids ( white grape, white cranberry, apple juice, vinegars) ,and pectins (Pomona, liquid pictin , powdered pectin, no pectin), trying to use limited sugar.
Anybody mastered this? I don’t want jam or preserve, I want a clear jelly. A bit of chopped pepper would be okay.
We use Dutch Jel Lite for our jams & jellies. 2/3 C per 4 C liquid. You can buy it online. Much simpler than Pomona’s & a lot cheaper. It’s a natural product made from orange peels.
It is expressly for low sugar recipes. Just make sure you get ‘Lite’. The regular Dutch Jel is for high sugar recipes. If you have trouble finding it let me know.
well - I make pepper jam not jelly. My recipe uses 1 1/4 C cider Vinegar to 8 C of ground up (in the food processor) peppers. Generally, acidic additives like vinegar, lemon juice & etc are there to help the set. You know, one of the advantages to Dutch Jel Lite is you can re-cook it. So if you make a batch & it doesn’t set properly you can just re-cook it adding whatever you think you may have left out. Experience helps too. Some fruits & berries have lots of natural pectin, like cranberries, and require little or no additional pectin to set. Others, like peaches have very little & need lots of pectin. It also varies from batch to batch with sone batches of the same fruit having more or less natural pectin & so requiring a bit more or less of added pectin. Takes a bit of practice Shrink.
# 2 looks a lot better. Much progress. In the Food Science article Chef Scott explains the use of acids in jam making. Gives me an interesting idea about timing the addition of the acid. Good read - thanks for that. I’ve been making jam for 30+ years so I guess I don’t really think about it much - just do it the way I always did. Sometimes it’s good to try new things.
Now - I bought Peppermint Stick ice cream today so I’m off to experiment with a new recipe for Hot Fudge Sauce to go on top.
Wow! Thirty years! FWIW, I like jam for strawberries, nectarines, pluots, and apricots, and I like the “small batch” technique from Cooks illustrated. No pectin!
For some reason, for peppers, I like the presentation and mouthfeel of the jelly, with maybe a bit of perfectly cut, perfectly suspended peppers…WHEN it comes out right.
I find jelly much trickier.
I believe those a Weck jars if that’s what you’re looking for. Sur La Table used to carry them. Nice jars but very pricey. You could also check Burch Bottle - they sometimes have some interesting jars.
Thank you! I have some pretty Weck jars, but I don’t like fiddling with the clips, so I use them in the fridge. What I like about this picture is the appearance of the jelly! Such a pretty color.
