Homemade Grape Jelly

Last time I showed you how to make homemade Strawberry Jam, so this week I’ll show you how to make Grape Jelly! We did this at our Keepers Meeting the same night as the jam, and though I prefer the jam, my son loved this so for all you jelly lovers out there, here goes!

What’s that? You don’t know the difference between Jam and Jelly?

• Jam is made by boiling fruit and does have fruit bits.
• Jelly is made from fruit juice and so has no fruit bits.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, we can continue on. This is a bit more involved, but still fairly easy. Again, this is NOT a canning recipe, just one for the refrigerator. Are you ready?

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 lbs seedless grapes (washed and sliced in half )
• 7 cups sugar
• 1 box fruit pectin
• 1 1/2 cups water

Equipment:

• Potato Masher
• Large Sauce Pan
• Glass jars with lids (Recipe makes about 8 cups, or 5 pint sized jars)
• Medium Bowl
• Metal Spoon
• Measuring Cups
• Cheese Cloth (Can be found everywhere, even Home Depot!)

Directions:

STEP 1: Place grapes in large bowl and mash with potato masher until very liquidy (is that a word?)

STEP 2: Place grape mixture in large sauce pan and add 1 1/2 cups water. Put on stove and bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

STEP 3: Place 3 layers of cheese cloth in large bowl and pour prepared fruit into cheese cloth. Gather ends of cheese cloth and hold over bowl squeezing out all the yummy juices into the bowl.

STEP 4: Measure 5 cups of prepared juice into sauce pan (can add up to 1/2 c water if you don’t have enough grape juice)

STEP 5: Stir in 1 box of pectin into the grape juice mixture in the sauce pan and bring mixture to full rolling boil on high heat stirring constantly. DO NOT WALK AWAY this will boil over quickly!

STEP 6: Once mixture reaches full boil, stir in sugar, yes all 7 cups, return to full boil and boil exactly 1 minute stirring constantly.

STEP 7: Remove from heat and pour into jars and seal with lids. After cooling place in refrigerator for up to 3 wks.

STEP 8: Enjoy! Now go have a piece of chocolate for being AWESOME!