@Notkatie 'My' hedgerow jelly 😁. It's made of whatever I can pick in the hedges in Autumn, so it can vary slightly... but broadly:
Blackberries/Elderberries (these form the main bulk of the fruit) in about equal quantities.
Crabapples/cooking apples/whatever apples I happen to have been given. It's usually crabapples.
Occasionally sloes and/or rosehips. NOT plums or damsons - I make plum jam seperately.
Note - not everything ripens at the same time, so I pick and store in the freezer until I have enough.
Get rid of any random wildlife, twigs or leaves in the fruit, and take the elderberries off their sprigs with a fork. Cut the apples into quarters or eighths if they are huge. Do NOT core them.
Get a HUGE pan and put all the fruit in it with only about a pint of water. Cover and simmer for a few hours until it is all really mushy.
Fill a jelly bag, if you have one, if not use a muslin cloth or even an old pair of tights, (make sure whatever you use is scrupulously clean and has been boiled to sterilise) with the mush and hang it over a preserving pan... or another huge pan... at least overnight. DO NOT SQUEEZE to get more juice out - just let it hang until it stops dripping completely. BEWARE - the liquid has an intense colour and WILL STAIN! You may need to do this several times if you have a lot of fruit mush.
Measure the total resulting liquid, in pints. Add it all back into the preserving pan with a pound of ordinary white sugar per pint of liquid. It is important that the liquid fills no more than half the pan.
Bring it to the boil, slowly, stirring to melt the sugar. This will take a LONG time. Once it does, leave the liquid to boil quite hard. It needs to reach a certain temperature (not sure what but you can look it up) which won't be until the liquid has reduced down a lot so you have a concentrated fruit and sugar syrup. Keep an eye on it, particularly in the later stages. It will take quite a long time to boil. You will see the bubbles change from frothy to gloomy, which will give you an indication that it is getting to the right heat. As it boils the bubbles will rise, which why you MUST watch it - you may need to reduce the temperature. I sometimes have to move the pan off the heat. BE CAREFUL! This stuff is liquid lava! Scum will form on the top which you should remove occasionally. I use a spoon with holes in it. The scum won't kill you, but it really spoils the look of the jelly. You can use a sugar thermometer to check the temperature of the liquid, but I dont have one so I don't know what temperature it needs to reach - you would have to look that up.
When the bubbles have gone properly gloopy you can start testing it to see if it is ready. I keep a few saucers in the freezer to get them properly cold to do this. Take about half a teaspoon of liquid and put it on the saucer (or whatever). Leave it for a few minutes to cool down. If it has reached the setting stage the surface of the drop will wrinkle if you push it with a finger. If it is even still slightly runny it's not ready. Keep it boiling and check again in about 5 minutes. Longer if its really runny, shorter if you think its just about there. Eventually you will achieve a really obvious wrinkle to your testing drop - it is then ready. Take it off the heat and let it cool while you get your jars ready.
These need to be washed thoroughly and sterilised. There are various methods of doing that, but I put them in a hottish oven until they are hot hot hot! I boil the lids and ensure they are completely dry. Do NOT dry them with a cloth, let them dry naturally. Once the jars and lids are sterilised I do not touch them with bare hands at any stage before they are sealed.
When the jelly liquid has cooled a bit but is still liquid, and all the jars are sterilised, start ladelling the jelly into the jars. This is a messy business - it helps if you have a wide funnel. Both the ladle and the funnel should be sterile. REMEMBER! You are working with liquid lava! This stuff can give you serious burns if you get it on your bare skin.
Fill the jars to about the shoulders. If you have waxed paper discs you can put them on top - they help to keep the oxygen out of the jelly. I don't usually have any, or if I do they may be the wrong size for the jars, so I don't always use them.
Put the lids on the jars while the jelly is still hot. The cooling of the jelly will form a vacuum in the jar which seals it and keeps it sterile. Again, remember this is liquid lava!
Once the jars are cooled you can clean the outsides.
That's about it! It's quite a lot of work but I only do it once a year and I think it is really delicious. You can use the same method to make bramble jelly (just blackberries and some apple for pectin) crabapple jelly (delicious but quite mild in flavour) and mint jelly (basically apple jelly with some white vinegar and LOTS of finely chopped fresh mint). I usually make around 25 jars of hedgerow jelly (of various sizes) at a time, which would last me a year. But of course I can't eat it at the moment.