Who doesn't enjoy the smell of spring? Right now our lilacs are blooming and it feels like spring festival! I recently read a blog entry about lilacs being edible and actually delicious in muffins and jelly. I looked up the recipe (on this lovely blog www.roscommonacres.com ) and here you go:
You will need:
4 cups of lilac
4 cups of water
8 cups of sugar
juice from one lemon
and 2 boxes of pectin
After you pick the lilac, separate the blooms from the green part and place into a glass bowl.
Boil the water, pour over the lilac, and cover it with lid. Let it sit for 24 hours until your lilac infusion is ready.
Using colander, strain the lilac into a pot and discard the blooms.
Add lemon juice and pectin and bring the mixture to boil.
Look at the color! Nothing I expected!
Add sugar and bring to boil. Boil for one minute.
Now it's ready to be skimmed and put into jars.
After tasting it, I thought it was on the sweeter side, so next year I will experiment with no pectin recipes. I am pretty sure that will make a difference. In the mean time, you can put less sugar... or simply put less jelly on your toast. That's what I have been doing. I really like the taste of this jelly!
