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I find in my trips to the farmers markets that there are some families that know all about jellies and some that do not. For anyone who has not experienced them they are a wonderful accompaniment to roast meats or fish, where the sweet sharpness of the fruit is a perfect foil for the richer tastes. My husband has never been a fan of gravy so jellies are a must for our table!
Jellies are traditionally made by cooking up fruits with water, until they are mushy and then draining them through a jelly bag (traditionally rigged up on an upturned stool) for several hours or over night. The resulting juice is then combined with sugar and any additional flavourings for a fast boil. It is a great way to produce a lovely preserve but it is time consuming, messy and wasteful, and I am not surprised that many people only try it once!
I was lucky enough to find a wonderful steam juice extractor from Finland which made the whole process a lot easier. I use steam juice extraction for apple and quince based jellies, because they give a wonderful clear sparkling result with a good taste.
I have now moved to a different method with some of my berry based jellies, where I produce the juice by forcing the fruit through a powerful juice extractor. This gives a slightly more cloudy preserve but as it involves pure juice without either steam or water I think it gives a more intense taste,
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