Parker Earle (strawberry) watercolor drawn in 1890 by Deborah Griscom Passmore (USDA).
This morning I set myself to making Real Strawberry Jelly, from the February 2011 issue of delicious. I made a few changes to the as-written recipe, in part to make my life easier, and it in part to work with ingredients I could find at my local supermarket (perhaps this also falls in the category of “making my life easier”?). I used frozen strawberries rather than fresh ones – at this time of the year much easier to find, and probably much better quality than anything fresh. I probably used a bit more than a tablespoon of lemon juice (squeezing directly into the pot is an inexact science), and when it came to drain the fruit I used a colander lined with cloth (this is what I had on hand). I substituted 6 gelatine sheets for 3 teaspoons of powdered gelatine (I couldn’t find the powdered version in the supermarket). I also didn’t faff around with inserting fruit into the setting jelly, although I did divide the strawberry syrup into ramekins to make individual servings. Despite my shortcuts, the resulting jelly is delicious. It’s not too sweet, and has a rich, rich strawberry flavour.
