Since my sister has a pomegranate tree and was kind enough to let us have the pomegranates off of it, we're making pomegranate jelly! This was my first time making a jelly. I've made lots of different kinds of jams before so I knew jelly wouldn't be too much different- and it's not.
First step is to seed all the pomegranates. This is unless you happen to have a press- which I didn't invest in this year. So it can be time consuming. I assigned my kids this task! Let them help out, feel useful and learn that when we all help out it makes canning easier since we all benefit from it.
The pomegranates from my sister's tree are a type I had never seen before, they were really light in color but very sweet! The good thing about them is they didn't stain the kids' hands. If you're doing this with regular pomegranates you'll want to wear gloves as they will stain.
Once you have a bowl full of the seeds it's time to juice them. I had been told one technique is to fill a ziploc bag half way and then use my rolling pin on it to juice all the seeds. I tried this with one bag and quickly realized that putting them in my food processor would be MUCH faster. So that's what I did, put the seeds into my food processor then processed until the seeds were all broken up. Then pour the mixture into a strainer that's placed over a bowl or pitcher and let the juice/pulp/seeds/etc separate. You'll end up with a pulp/stuff to throw away that will look like this-
Now that you have the juice you can start making your jelly!
4 cups pomegranate juice
1/4 c. lemon juice
1 box pectin
mix together and get to a rolling boil then add:
5 cups of sugar
get to a rolling boil again, skim off any foam, then pour into your jars and process in a water bath for 20 minutes.
I doubled this recipe (but wouldn't suggest doing more than a double batch at a time so you don't have issues with it setting up). I ended up with 12 half-pint jars (aka jelly jars) and 2 Tupperware containers that hold 2 cups each.
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