Few of us boast great culinary talent. Of course, any housewife is able to cook good, sometimes even tasty food, but only a few can create unique dishes.
Approximately the same applies to homemade workpieces. Everyone knows how to make light pickles and jams from the most common vegetables and fruits, but not all people are able to handle rarer crops. However, making jam or jelly is equally easy from any kind of fruit, if you follow a few simple rules. This article will discuss how to make dogwood jam.
First of all, it is necessary to understand what these fruits are. Dogwood is a red and medium-sized berry, characterized by a rough surface and fibrous flesh. On the palate, they most resemble cherries, however, they have their own specific aroma. If this crop grows in your garden, you will inevitably come across a large crop of berries, with which you will need to do something. So why not prepare the available dogwood for the winter? (jam - the recipe is presented below). Of course, you can make homemade wine, but this is a more time-consuming process that requires considerable experience. It is not recommended to freeze these fruits, since the unique taste and smell can be lost.
So, the best way to prepare dogwood for the winter is jam (a traditional recipe), namely thick jelly. To cook it, you must thoroughly rinse the berries, pour boiling water over them for a few minutes and then knead them with a wooden rolling pin to prepare mashed potatoes. Then put the dogwood in a metal sieve and thoroughly wipe through it. At this stage, the berry mass should turn orange and tarnish. Then the mashed potatoes should be wrapped in cheesecloth, which must be squeezed into a large container, and then hang over this vessel for a while to drain the juice. You need to collect about 3-3.5 glasses of liquid.
We continue to cook cornel - jam (cooking recipe) in the form of jelly
Add a little more water so that the amount of liquid is about four glasses. Pour into a saucepan and mix with 7 cups of sugar and 1/3 cup of lemon juice, bring to a boil and put two packs of gelatin dissolved in water. This mixture must be boiled for a few more minutes, then poured into another container and cooled. You will get a kind of liquid dogwood jam. How to cook a thicker treat, you can find some tips. The easiest of them is to cook the resulting jelly again the next day.
To do this, place the freshly brewed product for a day in the refrigerator (cooled to room temperature), then boil it again with several tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon of lemon juice. You can check the density as follows - scoop up a little mixture with a teaspoon and apply a few drops on a chilled plate. As soon as the obtained consistency suits you, remove the pan from the heat.
This is one of the most affordable ways to prepare dogwood for the winter. Jam (recipe - jelly) can be prepared at any home, even without any household appliances at hand and without acquiring other ingredients. All you need is the berries themselves in sufficient quantities, sugar and lemon juice. This treat is perfect for toasts or just as an addition to tea.