Jackie French showed how to make some delicious, sweet, all-natural fruit jellies. Jackie said that once kids get used to a genuine fruit flavour in their lollies, they won’t want to go back to commercial lollies containing food acids, additives, emulsifiers and artificial colours.
Raspberry and lime fruit jellies
Ingredients
1 packet frozen raspberries 1 litre apple juice juice of 3 limes 1 cup sugar (or less, it’s your choice) 1 teaspoon tartaric acid (this can be omitted but gives a sharper flavour) 70g gelatine (or more if you like hard jellies) baking tray lined with baking paper
Method
Simmer the juices and berries until they are reduced by half, then add the sugar and tartaric acid and boil the mixture for 3 minutes more. Strain. Add a little of the hot juice to the gelatine and stir till it dissolves, then add the mix to the rest of the juice. Stir thoroughly for a few minutes to make sure it doesn’t separate, then pour it all into the tray. Leave the mixture to set – this will take around 30 minutes. Now use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut the jelly into squares, diamonds, or snakes – you can give the snakes a pair of eyes with bits of peanut if you like, or use cookie cutters to cut out fat jelly babies, jelly bunnies, stars or circles. Store the jellies between baking paper in a sealed container in a dry, cool place for a day or two, but not too long – remember, they don’t have any preservatives in them. Throw them out if they start growing mould or look or smell odd, or start dissolving into mush.
Tip: to make dark purple blueberry jellies, substitute a packet of frozen blueberries for the raspberries in the recipe above. Orange coloured mandarin jellies can be made by substituting 3 cups of strained, freshly squeezed mandarin juice. You can also use 3 cups of cumquat juice (it makes slightly bitter, adult-type jellies) or 3 cups of passionfruit pulp for bright yellow jellies with a beaut tropical tang.