Making Violet Jelly

I heard about violet jelly 3 years ago. I have a lot of violets growing in my yard and so I thought I’d try making the jelly to sell on the farm stand.

Real pretty color in the infusion.

April 2016 batch

I made 1 batch and it lost the pretty color and never set-up. I sold a few, mostly as a “dessert sauce” as it was good, had nice flavor.

April 2017, 3 batches

The next year my mother-in-law helped me with making the jelly. It kept the lovely color this time, but still did not set-up. I was using the Pomona low sugar pectin.

So I tried again this year. Here’s what I do:

2 cups of flowers, no stems

The darker the color of the flowers the better color you get for the jelly.

Add 2 cups of boiling water

You want to use a Mason jar or heat proof container for this so it doesn’t break. Cover the jar or container and let it sit for at least 4 hours. I would pick the flowers in the very early morning the first 2 years and then make the jelly in the afternoon.

Plants are at their highest nutrition and health by mid afternoon and use this all during the night. By early morning, they are at their lowest ebb and the sun coming up sets them to work restoring what they used during the night and growing bigger or maturing. So maybe the early morning picking wasn’t the best time.

This year we’d had no rain for a few days and it was to rain the day I planned to make jelly. I didn’t want to deal with a lot of splashed dirt so I picked them after supper the night before. I left them in the infusion all night.

Look at the deep color

You can see in the waste that there’s still color that didn’t come out. So it looks like a long time in the infusion gives the best color.

Ingredients for violet jelly

Ingredients:

2 cups violet infusion
4 cups sugar
¼ cup lemon juice
2 tsps. calcium water (if using Pomona)
4 tsps. Pomona pectin

Method:

Mix the lemon juice into the infusion well. This will help hold the color.

Heat your jars, lids, and rings for 10 minutes to sterilize them. Leave them in the hot water until you fill each one.

Sift and mix the pectin into the sugar very thoroughly. If not mixed well, the pectin will form lumps.

In a non-reactive pot place the infusion mix and add the calcium water and mix very well. Bring to a boil. Add the sugar mix and stir vigorously for at least 2 minutes to incorporate the pectin in the liquid. Bring to a boil and remove from heat immediately.

There will be a lot of foam/scum on top. Let it set for a few minutes and it will reduce. Skim off what’s left. This may not look very good, but kids will like it!

Into each hot jar, using a funnel, pour the jelly up to ¼” from the top of the jar. Wipe the rim with a clean cloth, set a hot lid on and put the ring on tight.

Once you’ve filled all the jars, return them to the canning kettle of hot water and bring to a rolling boil. Process them at this point for 10 minutes.

Set them on a towel spaced evenly apart to cool. This can take several hours and they should not be disturbed. You will hear the ping of the lids as they seal when they cool.

Once they are all cool, check the lids to make sure the center is depressed. Label with contents name and the month/date.

Finished jellies, left to right: violet (5 rows), lilac (2 rows), dandelion (2 rows)

This time, with 4 tsps. pectin, they set-up a little better, but it’s still not firm jelly. But I got beautiful colors and the lilac smells heavenly. Now if I can just get it to set-up…

Credit for recipe: http://livetheoldway.com/violet-jelly/