So this is a new one for us at Beechview but with the temperature in the 20's and a glorious summer day, you couldn't help but smell this lilac at the bottom of the garden! So how do we harvest the smell and make it last all year ???? Let's check out Pinterest and see what comes up.
The children and I spent an hour removing all the flowers from the racemes that we had collected and ensured very little of the green bit went into the bowl. Not being one to follow a recipe really I poured boiling water over the top of the flowers (a full kettle) and left it to stew into a 'Tea' overnight.
So this morning we got out the muslin and strained the tea into a large pot. I added about 60ml of lemon juice (freshly squeezed and a little of the bottled variety) and brought it all to a boil. Then I put granulated sugar in a bowl and mixed in some powdered pectin. Now as I say I don't really measure (and often my jams and jellies are hit and miss) but I must have added around 700g of sugar and a teaspoon of pectin (you normally add 1lb of sugar to 1 pt of liquid if you want to be precise). Anyway, I added the sugar and pectin mix a little at a time while continuing to stir the mixture.
I popped in the thermometer and allowed it to get to 105 degrees, then left it on a rolling boil for 1 or 2 minutes. The next job was to funnel the liquid into sterilized jars and job-done. Because it wasn't 'canned' I would say you could get 4 months out of these in the fridge?
Now I am only saying this because I tried a little of the liquid but I get the feeling that this is going to be divine!!!
Comentarios