Lilac Jelly

We have written about lilac jelly but never made a post about it. It is time to remedy that!

The first time we made lilac jelly, we had beautiful medium and dark purple blossoms. The jelly turned out to be....surprise...a lovely lilac color! Well, at least it was purple until we canned it. Something about the canning process turned it from a lilac to a golden color. The taste was amazing, but I was a bit sad that the purple faded.

We have a white lilac bush at our current house. The blossoms are beautiful, the scent is lovely, and they make a wonderful jelly with a pale golden color.



To make our jelly, we first picked lilacs and pulled off just the blossoms.


Once we had 4 cups of blossoms, we soaked them in water with a bit of baking soda to remove any bugs and dirt. After about 30 minutes of soaking, we put fresh water on to boil, then rinsed the blossoms well with cool water. We transferred the blossoms to a half gallon jar, poured 5 cups of hot water over the top, and stirred with a long spoon to ensure the blossoms were not sticking together. We then let the blossoms steep in the water to create a lilac infusion. Once somewhat cool, we put the infusion in the refrigerator to continue steeping overnight.

The next day, we poured out the liquid, ensuring it measured 5 cups (ours was just a bit under, so we added a bit of water). We stirred in 1/2 cup of lemon juice and two boxes of powdered pectin. We heated it to a rolling boil and boiled it for one minute while stirring constantly.





We then added the sugar and returned it to a boil. We boiled for two minutes, stirring constantly. After the two minutes, we ladled it into hot, sterilized jars (leave a 1/4 " headspace). We added the lids and rings and processed them for 15 minutes (the recipe calls for 10, but you need to adjust the time for your altitude).


We took the jars out and let them cool overnight. Et voilà- we have lilac jelly!






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