Jelly Honey: Recipe For Wine Jelly

Recipe For Wine Jelly Biography

Most wine jelly recipes have you empty the entire bottle straight into a pot, add sugar, and start cooking. However, in my experience, reducing a portion of the bottle going into the jelly intensifies the wine’s flavor while cutting the booziness. Reducing 1½ cups down to ⅓ cup can take 20 minutes, so it’s best to get it going first, even though the reduced wine won’t go in until the end.Sugar plays an important role in jelly making: it helps preserve, set, and flavor the final product. Thinking of cutting back on sweetness? Think again. Dialing it back too much will prevent your jelly from congealing. I started testing by dissolving 3½ cups sugar in the remaining wine on the stovetop. But I felt the sweetness was a bit too much, so I started cutting it back. I was only able to lose ¼ cup sugar before my jelly lost its jiggle.

Some purists shy away from commercial pectin, but since this recipe starts with a bottle of wine, not a plethora of a pectin-rich fruit, it seemed like a hassle to do anything other than rip open a pouch of the liquid stuff. Along with it, I stir in a little lemon juice (for flavor) and a dot of butter. The butter seems weird, but there’s a reason. As the mixture boils, air bubbles rising to the surface create foam. Most recipes require skimming foam (it can cause problems when canning, plus it doesn’t look great), but I found the fat from a little butter allows the bubbles to surface, then disappear.

Lastly, I add the reduced wine to give the jelly a final punch of flavor. The jelly will still be quite fluid at this point, but don’t worry, it will set up perfectly after a little time (you may notice it thickening on the sides of the saucepan or on your spoon)transfer your finished wine jelly to jars and let cool to room temperature, then pop them in the fridge. Just remember that sometimes it takes up to 24 hours for the wine mixture to gel and really look like jelly. You just gotta be patient. Once it’s set, I serve the jelly with a wide range of cheeses, from soft goat to pungent blue, or even smoky idiazabal.