what to do when the jelly doesn't set

It seems that although jam making is on the rise, jelly making is making a slower comeback.
Perhaps it is the sweetness that puts people off? The slight jello-ness that undermines its sophistication? Or for some, perhaps, it is the fear that the jelly won't set.

I have always used pectin in my jams, and I never feel the need to experiment outside of my beloved Pomona's Pectin. This gives the jam a good set with minimal sugar, and I don't have to think too hard about it. But when I get my hands on a basket of really high pectin fruit, I can't help but envision a delicate and clear jelly, and these are the few times in my canning career that I mess with gel points and thermometers.  Last year, I made quince jelly, and the fruit was so high in pectin that it hardened as if thickened with gelatine. It was pink and smelled like flowers, and I hoarded my few little jars of it all winter. This year I made red currant jelly, and the little bit of precious juice overflowed onto the stove when I boiled it with sugar. I ended up with one prized burgundy jar, and it was perfect.


I thought that we'd go through the jelly making process here, in case it is a new one to you. Except this time- with this recipe, I didn't end up making jelly at all. I had to confront the moment and figure out what to do when my jelly didn't set. The day comes for us all, and all we can do is be prepared.


The process of making jelly starts with the process of making juice.  The fruit must be clean, because you will use every bit of it. Pectin, that magical stuff that makes the jelly gel, is more densely in the skin, core, and seeds of the fruit. So cut the fruit roughly, and throw it all into the pot. Then we add water, and cook it all until it it is soft.

 
 You might have a special tool called a jelly strainer- this is basically a mesh bag suspended over a plate. You can rig up your own with a piece of cheese cloth. I tie it to opposite ends of a colander, and then put the colander over a bowl to catch the juice. The key is to suspend the cloth- this will get you clearer and more wonderful juice.


 Pour all of the softened fruit (along with the liquid) through the cheesecloth. Let the whole thing drain for at least 3 hours, but up to a day.  Let it drain on its own without squeezing or poking it. I'm serious about that- one good squeeze will give you cloudy jelly.

 
When the fruit has finished draining, you now have juice. Combine the juice with the sugar in a pot, and boil until the mixture reaches 220 degrees F. You can also keep a plate in the freezer, and when a drop of the mixture solidifies on the frozen plate, you know that you have reached the gel point.  Then the jelly goes into jars, and sometime in the next day, it gels, and it doesn't slosh around in the jar when you nervously pick it up to see if it has turned firm and lovely.

Except when it does slosh around. And when and if this ever happens to you, you have 2 options. Crying and dumping out the contents of your jars is not one of these options. You don't have to. You can make this better!

The first option is to unseal your jars and re-cook the jelly.  Add more sugar, add some pectin, and you'll get your gel. Resterilize your jars, top with new lids, and process again.

I know. It sounds a little exhausting, right? If so, this is your path. When the jelly doesn't set, it's time to make cocktails.

In my case, I know exactly why it didn't set. I was living dangerously and laughing in the face of well-established science. One thing you might notice about jelly recipes is that they have so so much sugar. Enough sugar to make your teeth hurt when you eat it. And so every time I make jelly, I mess with the sugar. This time, I went too far. But sometimes the mistakes taste better than the goal. And so, I present you:

Apple Mint Syrup

Mixed with gin or vodka in a shaker with a little ice, this is pretty fantastic. And, (need I say it), paired with a ribbon and a little bottle of booze? It's a DIY apple-tini holiday gift bag.

makes ten 8-ounce jars

7 pounds apples
1 large bunch mint (stems and leaves)- I used a variety called apple mint that seemed quite fitting
6 cups sugar

Coarsely chop the apples without peeling or coring them. Put them into a large pot with the mint, and just barely cover with water. Cover, bring to a boil, and lower the heat to medium low. Continue to cook until the apples are very soft and breaking down, about 45 minutes.

Set up a large piece of cheese cloth over a colander and a large bowl. Pour the mixture through the cheese cloth and let it drain without poking or squeezing it. Let it drain for at least 3 hours, but up to a day.

You should have between 12 and 14 cups of juice. Combine the apple mint juice with the sugar in a large pot. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Let the mixture cook at a rapid boil for ten minutes. (If you want to make jelly instead of syrup, increase the sugar to 10 cups, and make sure that the mixture reaches 220 degrees F.)

Pour into sterilized jars, top with lids, and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Daring Baker's Challenge: Adventures with Caramel Cake

So here, it is, my first challenge with the Daring Bakers! And wow, was this more of an adventure than I ever could have imagined. This months challenge was Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater's Caramel Cake as posted in Bay Area Bites. The hosts for this month's challenge were Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondie and Brownie and Jenny of Foray into Food. Gluten-Free help was given by Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go.
Before I get into the crazy day I had with this cake, here is the recipe:

CARAMEL CAKE WITH CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature




Preheat oven to 350F

Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder.

Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)
In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light


OK, now are you ready hear about my day? A little background here- this is my first DB challenge, and I was feeling a little nervous. I'm not a huge fan of caramel, but I was willing to try, and I thought to jazz things up a little, I would infuse the thing with some lavender. I had just been away for over a week and I was cutting it close to the deadline, so I knew there would just be one chance to get it right.

You can see where this is going, right?

So here we are, the day after thanksgiving, and I'm ready to start this thing. We've got a few friends coming over later to help us eat the cake, and the kids are pretty psyched about the whole situation. So I get up in the morning, and make the caramel syrup right away. To infuse the lavender, I let about 3 T of lavender flowers soak in the 1 cup of cold water used to stop the carmelizing process for about an hour. This totally worked. I'm not sure the rest of it worked so well though. While I did get my caramel syrup to a nice amber color, it was super thin, and not so sticky. This was my first foray into caramel, and I was afraid I would burn the whole thing. But in the end, it tasted great, so I used it anyway. Here's my nice amber color:



The lavender was quite strong, and this syrup was so good that I got a bit sugar dazed sampling it. I let the whole thing cool and started work on the batter. Everything was going fine, until I began to preheat the oven.

Now here is the moment where I can choose to tell you the whole truth, a little bit of it, or none at all. You pick:

No truth: Then everything went great and the the cake came out flawlessly, filling my house with the sweet smell of caramel and lavender.

A little truth: Then a few rough things happened with my oven, but I got through it like a true daring baker, and the cake came out great anyway.

The whole truth: (not for the faint of heart) OK, so immediately my kitchen was filled with maybe the worst smell I have ever smelled. My husband ran into the kitchen and we quickly tried to discern the cause. I remind you here that I had been away for over the week, and under the watch of my husband, the oven had been used, well let's just say, a little less than usual.
So yes, upon further inspection, we began to suspect that the smell was one of (close your ears if you can't handle this) burning rodent. Breathe... I got through it and so will you.
At this point, my husband opened the pots and pans drawer under the oven and a very large living mouse jumped out. Joey and I screamed like small children and ran away from the kitchen. Our kids ran into the living room inquiring as to the cause of our shrieking, and all we could say was "back to your room, now." "What's that smell, Mommy?" "Back to your room, now. Don't your dolls need a tea party?" "Yeah!" And that bought us a good five minutes to deal with the situation.
This whole time, my precious caramel cake batter is in the mixer. And if there is one thing I will not do, it is abandon ship mid-batter.
So Joey starts taking apart our ancient electric stove. And sure enough, in the layer between the oven and the burners, not only is there a crispy mouse, but there is many hidden stores of half-eaten nuts and several nearly chewed through wires. Joey quickly cleans out the corpse and after inspection of the wires, we realize that it is time for the stove to RIP. May I remind you that the mixer is churning away?
OK, I know, this whole thing is super gross. But more importantly, my caramel cake! I'm not going to fail in my first Daring Bakers challenge because of a silly mouse nesting in my stove!
Thank God for neighbors. I called up my neighbor Hannah, who was recovering from just making Thanksgiving for 28 people. She began the preheating and I ran down there. Here's me coming back home with the cakes:
Now, although as I said, I refuse to give up here, I'm starting to worry a little bit about my cakes. It's late November in New England, and running the batter around the block is not going to help matters much, nor is running the hot cakes back up the block. But what am I to do? My cake eating guests are arriving and I must have a cake to give them.
As I had a few people over, I made a double cake, and I decided to put whipped cream flavored with the lavender caramel syrup in the center. I started working on the whipped cream and Browned butter frosting, and then I realized that I had forgotten that I needed a stove to brown the butter! There was no way I was going to turn my stove on for anything, so I looked for another option. Lucky we had a fire going:

After my face got really really red, the butter was finally browned. By this time I was losing my light to photograph the cake and I was also starting to lose my focus. I made the frosting and it was tooth-hurtingly sweet, so in a last minute moment of panic, I folded some of the whipped cream into the frosting. This created a really delicious creamy mess, and no matter how much I worked on it, it looked like my three-year-old had frosted the cake:

I drizzled some extra caramel syrup on the cake and added a sprinkling of Fleur de Sel, and presented it, as Julia Child says, "without apologies".

And in the end, although it wasn't pretty, it was really really good. A hit all around, I think.



I'm hoping next month's challenge will be a little less exciting for me, but I guess we'll just have to wait and find out. Hopefully I'll have a new oven by then. Until then, it's the rice cooker for me....