Muscadine Grape Jelly

This weekend we were looking for something to do while waiting for our daughter to finish up feeding the horses at the barn where she rides. We drove past a place where we had previously picked grapes on Highway 90: Windy Hill Vineyard. They grow a Florida grape known as muscadines. These are large grapes with a particular flavor and large seeds.

Not yet ripe grapes growing on the vine.

 They had many rows of muscadine grapes. Pick your own were about $1.30 per pound, and you could buy pre-picked muscadines for $1.80/pound. They only take cash or check, so make sure you bring one or the other. They told us a full bucket would cost about $15.

Great social distancing activity, we were the only people in our row.

 We drove down to an area where they told us we could find both the red/purple muscadines and the golden scuppernongs and tried to keep our total under $20 (which was all the cash we had). We wanted to make jelly and from past experience, each of the varieties makes their very own beautiful color of jelly. The scuppernongs tend to have a sweeter flavor.

We picked both the purple muscadines and the scuppernong (gold) variety.

We ended up with about four pounds of each. Not enough for a full batch, but I did find this small-batch recipe: Small Batch Muscadine Jelly I used 2.5 pounds of each type to get the 2.5 cups of juice required (I had to add 1/2 cup water though because I couldn't squeeze more juice out, perhaps 3 pounds would be better). I got to use the frozen lemon juice I had from my Meyers lemons last winter. I estimated 2 tablespoons of lemon juice for the "juice of one lemon". I ended up getting four 8oz jars from each variety. The smaller batches work well because I have had had to toss jelly that didn't get eaten within 18 months before.

Garnet and Gold Muscadine Grape Jelly

We still have some muscadines left to eat fresh, although I have seen muscadine pie recipes as well. I love the flavor of muscadine grapes, they even are used in my favorite wines from Lake Ridge Winery Southern White, Southern Red, and Sunblush. I can usually find the white and red varieties at Publix.

Magical Beauty Berry Jelly

We have long had beauty berry bushes in our yard.  They are a native species to Florida and pretty easy to grow.  Callicarpa americana is their scientific name.

 I knew they were not poisonous and a year or so ago I saw friends mentioning on facebook that they were making jelly from them.  This year lots of people on my Florida Urban Homesteading facebook group were making jelly from them so I decided to give it a try.

  

It is pretty easy to spot the clusters of bright purple berries.

My chickens love to eat them so as I was gathering them they followed me around, catching the berries I dropped.  I have also observed them jumping up to get the berries from the lower branches themselves.

I used one of the recipes from this book:  Florida's Incredible Edibles by Richard Deuerling that I had purchased for my daughter last summer.  She took a wilderness survival camp at the Tallahassee Natural History Museum and wanted to learn more about wild edible plants.

The recipe called for one and half quart of washed berries.  I was able to gather that quickly from just three of our bushes.

 Here are the beauty berries ready to be boiled down to make the extraction for the jam.

But as you boil them something happens, they turn this brown color.

The extraction looks like tea when you are done with it and you really wonder how this jelly will turn out.

Then something magical starts to happen when you mix in the sugar and pectin.

It turns a pinkish purple color.

And you end up with a very attractive jelly.

It tastes pretty good too (it does remind me of Mayhaw Jelly).  Looking forward to enjoying my beauty berry jelly.