This blog is LONG over due! Around Christmas I asked my aunt, Fran, to teach me how to make jelly from start to finish. She was allllll too happy to help me. So I headed to Louisiana back in January. Where I was greeted by a bucket of frozen blackberries and a skeptical look from my grandmother. First I had to thaw the berries... then I had to clean the berries... then I had to boil the berries:
Once the berries were so hot they were boiling you pour them into a chinois to have the deliciousness squished out of them (all technical terms here):
Once they bleed deliciousness into the pot... by the way did I mention you do some squeezing through a cheese cloth and the berries are boiling hot?? Because I could have done without blackberry shaped scald marks on my hand... either way, if the pioneers could do it, by George so can I.... so here we have the delicious juice of many berries:
...then you add a congealing powder and TONS of sugar... and you boil again... only you don't have to touch it this time, so it's ok...
While your sugar coma is coming to a boil you have to steam (or boil) the jars and lids to make them so hot they will seal (so your jelly doesn't ruin)...
If you're thinking to yourself, "Self, these look like they're boiling hot." You are correct! Other people might try to use tongs or something to work this out, but not us... which is why every single person involved in this process was burned no less than once. BUT at long last...
PERFECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
