I realised I’d had fruit in the freezer for a while and it was time to make jelly. Unlike jam making, where the fruit needs to be peeled, chopped, cored and otherwise dealt to, when you make jelly you can just pick the fruit over quickly, cover it all with water and rely on the jelly bag to take all the unwanted bits away. So easy!

Rather than make one small lot of crabapple jelly, and another of blackcurrant jelly, I decided to put the whole lot together. I put the (still frozen) fruit into the sink and picked it over well – some of the crabapples weren’t very good, so they went into the compost. Next I put all the fruit into my big stock pot, covered it with water, and gently brought it to the boil. As all the fruit was still mostly frozen, this took a while, but I’ve found it pays not to rush this step.

I simmered the fruit for nearly an hour, just on a gentle heat. Then I let it cool and strained the juice.  I brought the juice to the boil again and added sugar, and boiled the mixture until my magic confectionery thermometer read 104 C.

It always seems to take a long time to reach the crucial temperature – but when it’s reached, you know the jelly is going to set (and believe me, having to re-boil jelly because it didn’t set is no fun at all).

Working quickly, I poured the jelly into hot jars and screwed on the lids. It’s so satisfying hearing them ‘pop’ as they seal when the jars cool down.

I love holding the jars up to the light to see the pretty colour of the jelly.

The next day I labelled the jars and put them onto the shelf. 17 jars of lovely jelly – all ready to give to the friends who helped us with our olive harvest (and a few over so we have some jelly for toast and scones).

The labels came with issues of New Zealand Gardener – aren’t they pretty!