Lilac Jelly

I’ve been meaning to try this for years, and after the success of my peony jelly the past two years, I finally was organized enough this year to attempt LILAC jelly!

I grabbed a bucketful in a couple of minutes, but I didn’t quite use them ALL!

Then came the tedious chore of pulling off just the purple buds, leaving all greenery behind. My recipe called for 14 C of lilacs, so that’s what I used.

Add the lilacs to a large heavy pot and my recipe called for 10 cups of water. Of course, I didn’t do that… I leaned more towards my chokecherry recipe which has you just cover your berries with water. Since 10 cups didn’t seem like enough water, I went ahead and added more water. Would the flavor be more concentrated if I hadn’t? Probably. But I was worried more about burning all those pretty petals I’d just spent an hour harvesting. So 10 cups. Or 14. Take your pick!

Boil 10 minutes until you have an ugly grey sludge. Put the lid on the pot and let steep overnight.

Strain through your colander or cloth.

It’ll be a tan grey mix, not a pretty purple! I saw some recipes that added a few blueberries to make purple, but I wanted straight lilac this time. The cool thing is… you take 4 C of your lilac tea, mix in one package of pectin and 1/2 C of lemon juice, and you get this!

Back to being pretty! Bring it to a roiling boil or a rolling boil (depending on your age). Add 5 C of sugar and bring back to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Keep stirring and watch so it doesn’t boil over. Go ahead and water bath can for 10 minutes using the standard best practice.

I bought some tiny jars so I could gift this precious jelly to multiple people. I made three batches. It does taste delicious, but at this moment, I’ll stick to peony jelly because it’s less work since the petals are huge and it’s prettier! I’m glad I tried it, though!

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