Spring Flower Jelly is a lovely way to celebrate the arrival of spring. This easy to make jelly uses edible flowers to capture the essence of spring and bottle it up for enjoyment through the year. What could be better?

You can make the jelly using a single type of flower or you can create combinations. Some edible flowers to consider are: dandelion, violet, clover, honeysuckle & lilac.

Included in this recipe are instructions for using your own natural home-made pectin, liquid pectic and lower sugar pectin and how to preserve this recipe for long time storage. If you plan in eating the jelly within a few weeks you can skip those steps and refrigerate instead.

Spring Flower Jelly Recipe

Serves: 4 Half pints (250ml)

Ingredients

• 4 cups flower petals (more if you want an even stronger flavour)
• 6 cups water to make 4 cups flower tea
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 medium lemon
• 2 Packets of liquid pectin (or 1 half pint jar of home-made apple pectin or for a reduced sugar recipe use 4tsp calcium water and 4 tsp Pomera's pectin)

In the summer I make this recipe using rose petals: not a spring flower but we've eaten it all of the lilac jelly and didn't take photos!

Instructions

• Collect about four cups of flower petals. Remove stems and all of the green bits - they taste bitter.

• Bring six cups of water to a boil and remove from heat. Place your washed flower petals into the hot water and steep for an hour. Strain our the petal and reserve four cups of liquid. You'll probably notice that the tea is a brownish colour. Don’t worry, when you add lemon juice a chemical reaction occurs and depending on the flowers you used, the colour should re-emerge.

• Add the juice of one medium sized lemon and four cups of flower tea to your jelly pan. Bring to a low simmer.

• Wash your jars with hot water and soap and set aside. Prepare your canner and heat it up. Once the canner is heated sterilize your jars. NOTE: You can skip sterilizing but you will have process your jars for an additional five minutes if you do.

• Add two pouches of liquid pectin or about 1 half pint jar of home-made apple pectin or for a reduced sugar recipe use 4tsp calcium water and 4 tsp Pomera’s pectin. Keep in mind that with flowers there isn’t any natural pectin so you need to use quite a bit to get a good set.

• Bring to a low boil for five minutes and test the set. When you are happy with the set, ladle the mixture into your jars, wipe the rims, place the warmed lids and the rings on the jars and carefully set them into the canner.

• Following your canners instructions process the jars for five minutes. Turn off the heat and let cool for ten minutes. Carefully remove the lid. Using a jar lifter carefully lift them and place them on a cutting board or towel to cool completely.

• Once the jars have cooled for 24 hours, check their seal. You will hear a pinging sound as jars cool. This is the tell-tale sign of a successful seal. If you look at the lid, you will see a small bump in the centre. This bump depresses as the jars seal “sucking it down”. If you press on the and that bump pops up, they are not sealed properly. If you should have an issue with a jar not sealing, refrigerate it and eat within a few weeks.

• Remove the metal rings and wipe the lids and jars with a damp clean cloth.

Flower tea before adding lemon juice

Flower tea after adding lemon juice. Magical isn't it?

If you like this recipe you might like this other list of lovely lilac recipes as well.
Beautiful & Simple Spring Lilac Recipes!

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