Maypop (passion fruit) jelly

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my latest canning adventure with you. I made maypop jelly today! I followed a blog post, for the most part, which I will share below. I did find that I needed more water than called for and wound up using about 3 cups of water per batch for boiling the fruit.

But, what's a maypop, you say? Well, it's also known as Passion Fruit and it's the fruit of the passiflora incarnata vine. It's sweet and tart at the same time inside. You don't eat the tough, leathery outsides. The inner portion is filled with crunchy seeds with a lemony "jelly" surrounding them.

Ripe maypops (so called because they "may pop when you step on them!) Those are ugly fruits but so yummy on the inside! These are some we foraged from a friend's farm.

This bloom was white but most often you'll see purple ones. Isn't it beautiful?

See the seeds and gelatin that surround them?

To make the jelly, you need to cut up enough of the fruit to make 2 cups, pressed into the measuring cup. Put it into a pan with 3 cups of water and boil it for 5 minutes. Then strain out the pulp and reserve the liquid.

Press the juice out with the back of a spoon or ladle, or set a large heavy cup on it to press out even more juice.

Here's the juice in the pot (pardon the ugliness of the pot) and ready for the powdered pectin.

Then, put the liquid in a tall pot (should have 3 cups of liquid total), add powdered regular pectin (a full package for this recipe), and bring it to a boil. When it's boiling add 3 1/2 cups sugar all at once. Stir and continue stirring until it comes to a hard, rolling boil, then boil and stir for 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let it settle down about 5 minutes. Skim off any foam. Ladle into hot half-pint or pint jars; process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. (I use a steam canner but the timing is the same.) Wait 5 minutes after turning off the heat when the time is up, then remove the jars from the canner. I actually made 3 batches but the first batch only made one jar following the directions on the blog I'll link you to.

And here's the blog I mentioned! Give her a visit and let her know I sent you! PeppySis: MayPops Jelly

I will have a video for this in a few days and will add it here. :)

Blackberry season is here and a recipe for cobbler!

We have wonderful wild blackberries growing right here on the homestead, and we are so grateful for them. We just have to beat the birds to them!

Well, today we did it. And we picked about a quart and a half of delicious, juicy, ripe blackberries. Purple fingers is only part of the reward for braving the thorns and brambles.

What a treasure! Of course, the first thing I did was make a blackberry cobbler from them. It was so yummy!

Here’s what I did:

After I washed the berries well, I sugared them with about 1 1/2 cups sugar, then covered them and let them macerate for about an hour to bring out all the beautiful juices.

Then I melted some buttery spread in a glass baking dish which is about 9 inches square.

Next, I mixed up my cobbler batter. This is nothing more than 1 1/2 cups self rising flour, about 1/2 cup sugar, and enough milk to make it thick, like pancake batter. I used my Nido powdered whole milk for this step and just put about 3 tablespoons of the powder in with the other dry ingredients. Then I added water and stirred till it was the consistency I wanted.

I poured the batter into the melted butter in the baking dish.

Then I poured in the macerated blackberries, trying to get an even layer to within about an inch of all edges of the pan.

I baked it in my Coleman stove top oven at about 325F (it could be baked at 400F in a conventional oven) until the sides and bottom were golden brown and a knife inserted in the center came out clean. It took about an hour in the Coleman oven.

After letting it cool about 30 minutes (this was the hardest part, just letting it sit there!), I mixed up some whipped topping using 2/3 cup whipped topping powder and 2/3 cup cold milk made from the Nido powdered milk. Dolloped generous portions of the whipped topping onto the cobbler serving in a bowl, and we had fresh homemade blackberry cobbler!

Nothing better in the world!!

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