jude’s guava jelly

A delicious guest recipe by Jude Fanton, director of the Seedsavers foundation, from the 29 March 2010 belly radio show on bayfm99.9.

GUAVA JELLY

Cut up guavas roughly. Put them in a thick bottomed saucepan and add enough water to fill to one quarter the height of the guavas.
Boil twenty minutes to soften and bring out their juices.
Pour all this mush (don’t mush it) into a muslin bag or pillow case or bank bag and hang with a shoestring (!) over a bowl to allow juice to drip out overnight.
Do not squeeze, cajole or in any other way interfere with the dripping process, or the juice will go murky.
Weigh the juice and pour into the same saucepan as before. Add equal (or less, say two thirds) weight in sugar.
Boil slowly until setting point. Ah ha! How is that achieved? How judged? The jam and jelly makers’ dilemma!
It takes any time from 20 mins to an hour. It will take less time if you have put in a lot of sugar, and if you add pectin in the form of apple pips or Jamsetta.
It will take more time if you put in a lot of water in the first process, or little sugar in the second.
To test when you have reached setting point, take a cold plate and drip a bit of jelly on it. Let it cool and observe whether it is set by tipping it sideways.
Be careful at this point as setting point is reached fairly quickly.

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