Violet Jelly-Kitchen Magic

I don't make violet jelly every year.  It's an on-again, off-again project for me.

But I've been asked to speak at a large gathering and bring 'pretty' foods.  Violet jelly certainly qualifies.

It's a straight forward and easy recipe.  I gather the violets over a week or so and store them in my freezer in a ziplock until I;m ready to make jelly.  Decoct the violets in boiling water, add sugar and lemon juice and 'Presto-Chango', the color changes from violet blue to lavender pink.

Well, that's the theory anyway.

The lemon juice should alter the pH so that the anthocyanins (the color that's in things like violets and red cabbage) should change.  If you keep the pH fairly neutral, you'll keep the blue-violet color.  Go more to the acid side of the scale and you get a lavender, tip the scale to the alkaline side and you flatten the anthocyanins and get a yellow-ish green color.

I wanted a least a few jars to stay the dark violet-blue, so I opted not to add lemon juice.

Here's what I got:

No blue at all.  That's when I realized that both my water and sugar are mildly acidic.

(sigh)  No blue for me.

My friend Holly lives in an area where the water is very alkaline.  Her jelly turned yellow.  Tasted delicious  but still yellow.

But I have to admit, they are still beautiful.

Here's the recipe.  The intensity of the color of the jelly depends on how many violets you start with.  Although the recipe called for 2 cups (which have resulted in a pink color), I amped it up to almost 4 cups of flowers.

Here's the recipe:

Pour 2 cups boiling water over 2 cups of violet flowers (I used almost 4 cups of flowers).  Allow to sit overnight.  Add 1/4 cup lemon juice (strain this well if you want clarity) and 4 cups of sugar.  Bring to a boil. You can add a number of things for pectin (if you don't add pectin, you'll end up with violet syrup):  crabapples, powdered pectin and liquid pectin.  I've used all three but I wanted this jelly clear, so I opted for  one package of liquid pectin.  Boil for an additional two minutes.  Skim, pour into jars, seal and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Easy-Peasey.