My in-laws received some beautiful cacti as a gift about 15 years ago. For years they’ve enjoyed the most beautiful flowers on the cacti which are right out front of the property on the road. Eventually the flowers give way for several stunning, bright purple pears. We’ve always talked about trying to make a prickly pear jelly and this year we made it happen on a whim one Saturday.
** There’s a handy-dandy, easy to print recipe card available at the bottom of this post
Prickly Pear Jelly
Ingredients:
2.5 cups prickly pear juice
5 cups sugar
0.5 cup lemon juice
1 box of powdered pectin (roughly 18 teaspoons)
Instructions:
1. Pick your pears. We found it helpful to wear leather grill gloves AND use grill tongs to twist the fruit off.
2. Burn the needles off the pears. For this Roddy used his pear burner – a propane tank attachment that resembles a flame thrower. He laid the pears out on a grill in batches, and went to town. We happen to have a grill with a surface that can be raised and lowered and this made things pretty easy. The basic idea here is to burn them evenly until they have a brighter color and a vibrant shine. If you have a gas range this part will probably be easier.
3. Cut the pears into quarters and boil on the stove for approximately 10 minutes. *NOTE: Don’t remove your gloves yet! No matter how shiny they look, I promise you will still be plagued by the fine needle hairs*
4. While the pears boil, ready a piece of cheesecloth, or a thin dishtowel – you basically need something to strain with. You will also need a fine sieve and another pot. Place the cheesecloth over the sieve, and the sieve over the extra pot.
5. Pour off half of the remaining water, then mash the fruit with a potato masher.
6. Pour the pear fruit mash into the cheesecloth. Once you have everything out of the pot, gather the edges of cheesecloth and twist in the middle. You’ll want to squeeze as much juice out of the pears as possible. Make sure that the juice has to go through the sieve before landing in the pot below.
7. Open the cheesecloth and return the mashed fruit to your original pot and mash with a potato masher again for as long as you can bare it, or until you are satisfied that you have nothing but skin and juice left in the pot. Pour this mixture back into the cheesecloth, wring it and squeeze again. At this point you can discard the skin and seeds – I save these for our vermicomposting bin.
8. It’s really hard to estimate how many pears you will need to make enough juice for this jelly recipe – but it’s roughly 3lbs of whole fruit to 3 cups of juice. Note, I said ROUGHLY.
9. Boil cactus fruit juice, pectin and lemon juice for 3 minutes aggressively. The mixture should still be bubbly/frothy even when stirring it.
10. Add your sugar and bring to boil for another 2-3 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken.
11. Prepare your canning jars following instructions for canning high acid foods.
Have you canned prickly pears before? Do you have any other recipes for prickly pears? Do share below!
- 2.5 cups prickly pear juice
- 5 cups sugar
- 0.5 cup lemon juice
- 1 box of powdered pectin (roughly 18 teaspoons)
- Pick your pears. We found it helpful to wear leather grill gloves AND use grill tongs to twist the fruit off.
- Burn the needles off the pears. For this Roddy used his pear burner – a propane tank attachment that resembles a flame thrower. He laid the pears out on a grill in batches, and went to town. We happen to have a grill with a surface that can be raised and lowered and this made things pretty easy. The basic idea here is to burn them evenly until they have a brighter color and a vibrant shine. If you have a gas range this part will probably be easier.
- Cut the pears into quarters and boil on the stove for approximately 10 minutes. *NOTE: Don’t remove your gloves yet! No matter how shiny they look, I promise you will still be plagued by the fine needle hairs*
- While the pears boil, ready a piece of cheesecloth, or a thin dishtowel – you basically need something to strain with. You will also need a fine sieve and another pot. Place the cheesecloth over the sieve, and the sieve over the extra pot.
- Pour off half of the remaining water, then mash the fruit with a potato masher.
- Pour the pear fruit mash into the cheesecloth. Once you have everything out of the pot, gather the edges of cheesecloth and twist in the middle. You’ll want to squeeze as much juice out of the pears as possible. Make sure that the juice has to go through the sieve before landing in the pot below.
- Open the cheesecloth and return the mashed fruit to your original pot and mash with a potato masher again for as long as you can bare it, or until you are satisfied that you have nothing but skin and juice left in the pot. Pour this mixture back into the cheesecloth, wring it and squeeze again. At this point you can discard the skin and seeds – I save these for our vermicomposting bin.
- It’s really hard to estimate how many pears you will need to make enough juice for this jelly recipe – but it’s roughly 3lbs of whole fruit to 3 cups of juice. Note, I said ROUGHLY.
- Boil cactus fruit juice, pectin and lemon juice for 3 minutes aggressively. The mixture should still be bubbly/frothy even when stirring it.
- Add your sugar and bring to boil for another 2-3 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken.
- Prepare your canning jars following instructions for canning high acid foods.
The post Recipe: Prickly Pear Jelly appeared first on Chickens are a Gateway Animal.