23.5.14

Mayhaw Jelly

A friend shared a huge bag of mayhaws with my dad who then gave them to us. He requested jelly that was not too sweet. My son cut some of the tiny fruit and said they tasted a lot like apples. Each one contains one large seed.


We first washed them, then tried juicing them with the juicer. Several handfuls only resulted in a few drops of juice.

Instead of juicing, we then cooked the berries, adding just enough water to cover the bottom two inches once they had been added to a tall pot. 

As they cooked, we skimmed the foam from the top of the pot. 


As they simmered, the girls took turns mashing the berries with a potato masher which works perfectly for preparing fruit for recipes. 


They helped me carefully strain the juice from the pulp and seeds which were then added to our compost pile. 


For jelly, the typical ratio is equal amounts of fruit juice and sugar. Because Daddy specifically requested that it not be very sweet, we only added half as much sugar as called for. Lemon juice is recommended in berry jelly. Even though they aren't necessarily berries, I thought it couldn't hurt. We added 1/3 cup lemon juice to the pot. Even with half the recommended amount of sugar, he still said it tasted very sweet. Our recipe was similar to this recipe for berry jam from Ball, only strained so we have jelly instead of jam.


Have you ever tried mayhaws or mayhaw jelly? It is a little tart and tastes delicious on scones.
Jennifer

3 comments:

  1. would you believe I'd never heard of mayhaws before today? Sounds interesting! I will have to find some mayhaw jelly when we next travel south.

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    1. Kym, I shared the picture on Facebook and other friends hadn't heard of them either. I've had the jelly before but had never seen the fruit before these were shared. We have made four kinds of jelly so far this year, and this is my favorite one yet.

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  2. this is super cool! you made it so easily oh My God. you are wonderful.. i'll definitely try the mayhaw jelly now.

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