This Mulberry Jelly recipe comes from Laurie Ninegar, Elm Creek, Nebraska.
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Mulberry Jelly
3 3?4 cups juice (takes 1 full ice cream bucket – 5 quarts – of berries)
1?2 cup lemon juice
1 package pectin
5 1?2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon butter
Wash berries and cook slowly over low heat until they are basically mush. Put through a colander (I use a metal cone-shaped one), smashing them with a wooden pestle. Then take the juice and run it through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.
Measure out 33?4 cups juice, then add lemon juice and pectin; bring to full rolling boil. Add sugar and butter. Return to rolling boil and stir for 5 minutes. This is longer than normal according to the pectin directions, but there is something about mulberries that requires more boiling time. Strangely, this boiling time can be decreased by 1 to 2 minutes at the end of the season. The berries from the first two weeks of harvest require more boiling.
Ladle hot mixture into jars and seal; process in a boiling-water bath for 5 minutes. I let it set up a minimum of two weeks. There have been times it took months to set up.