Tis the Season... for edible gifts (1) - Wine Jelly

Christmas tools around really quick! the older one gets, the faster time flies by. Christmas here is is kinda like Chinese New Year back in Singapore. Lots of visiting, feasting, and exchange of gifts (instead of "ang pows")

This is our 3rd Christmas here and we have been recipients of many little tokens of friendship, both edible and non edible and have experienced warmth and love. So in turn, since we're not too hot in the arts and crafts department - we  decided to make edible gifts. This year it's Wine Jelly and Cinnamon Bread.

Jars filled, waiting for labels

We chose my favourite varietal - Cabernet Sauvignon and set about filling our apartment with wine fumes as the jelly cooked. We did taste a glass - quality control of course, and pronounced it good everyday drinking wine, perfect for jelly.

all nicely labelled, ready to be delivered

Hints:
First make sure you have enough jars - I often get caught out with insufficient jars because I had not factored in the volume created by dissolved sugar!
Also ensure that your pot is large enough to contain the "roiling boil" that occurs - the hot jelly liquid rises up quite a ways in the pot. A large pot will save faint hearts from angina. You may stir the boiling wine mixture with a wooden spoon to try and prevent the scalding hot jelly from overflowing.

The recipe below makes 12 x 250ml / 24 x 125ml jars of jelly

Ingredients:
1.5L Red Wine (your favourite)
1 Cup (250ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice - about 4-5 large lemons
2 pkg (2x 57g) Bernadin Fruit Pectin
9 Cups extra fine granulated sugar

Sterilise the Jars:
There are various ways of sterilizing jars - I'll detail the two that I use most often

Oven Method:
1. wash jars in hot soapy water, rinse well and place on baking tray
2. place in cold oven and bring temperature up to 110C / 225F for 30min
3. allow to cool slightly before filling (in other words, leave in oven till ready to fill)

Dishwasher method:
This is great is you have a larger quantity of jars and haven't yet washed them.
1. place jars and lids in dishwasher
2. wash at the hottest setting
3. allow to dry (use heat dry setting) before use.

Sterilise the Lids:
1. place lids in large pan
2. pour boiling water over the lids and let sit for 10min.

Method:
1. Pour wine and lemon juice into large pot - whisk in pectin till dissolved
2. Measure sugar, set aside
3. Bring wine mixture to boil
4. Add sugar to wine mixture, bring up to a railing boil and boil hard for 1min (exactly)
5. Remove from heat
6. Skim foam if necessary
7. Bottle up to 5mm of rim of jar
8. Place lids (shake off any water) onto jars (hot!)
9. Carefully place rings over lids and screw down firmly.
10 Set aside on tray to cool.

I love sitting back after all the effort and listening for the lids to go "thuk" as the lids get sucked in and seal off the jars during the cooling process. Once the jars are well sealed and cool, wipe any sticky jelly drips off the sides and label.

Wine jellies are great with cheese and crackers and they also make a fantastic glaze for roasts.

match made in heaven? wine jelly, cheese and crackers

Waste not, want not ... a new dessert is born!
(or 2 for the price of 1)

Seeing as I was going to be serving in Church on Christmas Day, I thought it would be nice to give the rest of the crew some small treats as Christmas presents. I counted at least eight persons - and thought - some form of home made edible gift would go down well.

Jams? cookies? fudge? cake?.. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to fall back on good old Cabernet Wine Jelly. Inexpensive (it can turn a very mediocre / cheap wine into a scrumptious treat), quick and easy to make.

Cabernet Wine Jelly

Great! that settled the issue of what to give. Now, I had to find suitable containers. As it was such a last minute decision, it was too late to hunt around town for bottles (in any case,  I had no time, pre-holiday work being rather busy). Hmm. hmmm. hmmm .. What should I use... whizz up and down supermarket aisles thinking hard and doing the weekend grocery shopping at the same time.. Ah-ha! baby food bottles! Small and cute, with an estimated volume of 150 - 200ml, they would be ideal. As luck would have it, a range of Organic babyfood was on specials - 3 for $4. Grabbed a dozen - all fruit flavours - apple, pear, mango - and loaded them into my trolley.

Wine: found 2 bottles on specials as well, unbranded Cabernet Merlot, locally produced in Hawkes Bay. Can't be too bad.

Not wanting to waste food, I enlisted the help of a good friend to help me eat up some of that fruit puree. But as you might have guessed, 12 bottles is a lot of fruit puree to eat. They were surprisingly tasty (we had expected bland, bland, bland). After 2 bottles each, we gave up and decided empty the remaining bottles in a clean ice-cream tub to freeze. (with the initial idea to use them in smoothies) As we were doing so, it struck us that the pure fruit would make a rather nice sorbet - a light summery dessert for a Kiwi Christmas dinner.

Fruit Puree

Converting baby food into (an alcoholic) dessert:
What we did - to the fruit puree, we added a whizzed up can of mango slices, added icing sugar (to taste), zest and juice of one lime and a few shot glasses of cointreau and vodka (not too much, as the alcohol will make it difficult to freeze). Gave it a stir and chucked it in the freezer. Removed every 3-4h, used a fork to break up the ice crystals and mix in some air. Did this a couple of times and we got a half decent home made sorbet. We plan to serve it up in salt crusted glasses - like a Margarita.

Apple-Mango Margarita Sorbet

Whilst the sorbet was freezing nicely, the bottles (nearly forgot those in the excitement of creating this alcoholic dessert) were then washed clean and placed in a 110C oven for 30min to sterilise them.


Cabernet Wine Jelly

• 4 cups of wine 
• 4 cups preserving sugar (with pectin and acidity regulator)
• juice of 1 lemon

1. Warm the sugar and add all of it to the wine in a large stockpot
2. Add lemon juice
3. Stir the wine-sugar mixture over low heat until sugar is completely dissolved
4. Turn heat up high and bring the mixture to a roiling boil
5. Boil for 4-5min or until mixture reaches 105C, skim off any scum
6. Test for set point by placing a teaspoon onto a cold dish - place it in the fridge till cold
7. Set point is reached when the test jelly creases or wrinkles when a finger is run across it
8. Remove jelly mixture from heat
9. Bottle in warm sterilised jars 

Easy as!

Once jelly is cool and set (takes a few hours), enjoy it on crackers with a strong blue vein cheese!