daily sustainable: Elder flower marmalade / Marmelada od cvjetova bazge

Making homemade jelly’s and marmalade is cool thing you can do. Even if you're not so great in kitchen and don’t like cooking. Maybe, you can remember your grandma making lot of marmalade and you want to go her steps or maybe you just prefer homemade stuff than those you can buy in store. In the past few years I made homemade marmalade from pears and oranges since my grandma and my boyfriend’s mom and grandma makes plum, apricot and strawberry marmalades. But this year I wanted to try something new. Something I never tried making or tasting. This year I made elder flower jelly/marmalade, and I have to tell you – if you like elder juice you’ll like elder jelly too. Process of making elderflower marmalade is not complicated. What you need is 40 elder flowers (same as one you need in making elder flower juice and you can read my advice on picking flowers here http://dailysustainable.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-homemade-elder-juice.html) 1 liter of water, juice from 2 lemons, 500-700 grams of sugar (depending on how sweet you want it) and 1 bag (25grams) of gelatin. When you pick your flowers, clean them from dirt and bugs (as I already said, same process as for making juice), put them in a pot and cover it with 1 liter of water. Leave it for 24 hours. Next day take your water with elder flowers, strain it and put it in a pot. Cook it until boiling then mix gelatin with 3 tablespoons of sugar and put it in.

Now you can add rest of your sugar. Allow your jelly to boil, stir it the whole time and try to remove foam that will be on top. Do it for next 3 minutes. Now you only need to pour it into sterilized jars and store in a cool and dark place. Don’t panic if it’s liquid for next few hours, it will become jelly like when it’s totally cooled down.

As I said, you should put your marmalade into sterilized jars. I sterilized them in oven, and it’s quite simple to do, but you still have to be careful. Best thing to have in mind is that you don’t add cold food to hot jars or hot food to cold jars. If you do that, jars will shatter and that is dangerous. When sterilizing jars keep in mind you have to sterilize lids too. So, how to do it? As I said I did it in oven (and everybody I know do it that way so it’s most preferred method for me) so I’ll teach you that way. First wash your jars and lids. Use hot water and dish soap and be sure you cleaned it good. Heat the oven to 110°C/gas ovens on 1, and don’t heat it any higher because your jars might be breaking. Put jars and lids in, making sure they don’t touch each other and leave them for 20-30 min. It’s best to do while you’re making your marmalade or jelly because, as I said, you should pour your marmalade into hot jar. After 20-30 min, remove each jar but be sure to use thick oven mitts because your jars will be pretty hot.

Now you have sterilized jars and you can put your marmalade in them. Also, you can sterilize jars in microwave, dishwasher or on stove, but since I never tried those methods I can’t tell you more about them. For the end one good tip I got from my grandma when I first started making homemade marmalades few years ago. She told me to only make them when I’m in the good mood for making it, because if you want your marmalade to end up good and tasty you should be in right mood (have will to make it and not be forced to make it) and enjoy ritual of making homemade marmalade.

For the end of this post, I'll show you what's new in my garden after a week of rain

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Izrada domaćih džemova ili marmelada jedna je od onih super stvari koje možete učiniti. Čak i ako niste veliki ljubitelj kuhanja ili niste pretjerano iskusni u tome. Možda se sjećate svoje bake koja je redovno radila marmelade i želite slijediti njezine korake, ili možda samo više volite domaće od kupovnih stvari. U posljednjih nekoliko godina radila sam pekmez od kruške i naranče, jer i moja baka, ali i buduća mi svekrva kao I dečkova baka, rade one od šljiva, marelica i jagoda. No, ove godine željela sam probati nešto potpuno novo. Nešto što nikada nisam niti radila niti probala. Odlučila sam napraviti marmeladu/žele od cvjetova bazge, i moram vam reći – ako volite sok od bazge voljet ćete i žele. Proces izrade marmelade od cvjetova bazge nije kompliciran. Potrebno vam je 40 bazge (isto kao i u izradi soka bazge cvijet , a moje savjete za branje cvjetova bazge možete pročitati ovdje http://dailysustainable.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-make-homemade-elder-juice.html ), 1 litra vode , sok od 2 limuna , 500-700 grama šećera ( ovisno o tome koliko slatko volite i želite) i 1 vrećica ( 25grama ) želatine. Kada uberete cvijeće, očistite ga od prljavštine i buba (kao što sam već rekla, isti postupak kao i za izradu soka), stavite ih u posudu i prelijte s 1 litrom vode. Ostavite da stoji 24 sata. Sljedeći dan uzmite vodu s bazgom, procijedite i stavite u lonac. Kuhajte do vrenja, a zatim pomiješajte želatinu s 3 žlice šećera i dodajte u vodu. Dodajte i ostatak šećera. Pustite da vrije, miješajte cijelo vrijeme i pokušajte ukloniti pjenu s vrha. Kuhajte 3 minute. Sada samo trebate uliti svoju marmeladu u sterilizirane staklenke i ostaviti ih na hladnom i tamnom mjestu.

Nemojte paničariti ako je marmelada tekuća sljedećih nekoliko sati, kada se potpuno ohladi više neće biti tekuća.

Kao što sam rekla, marmeladu bi trebali spremiti u sterilizirane staklenke. Ja sam svoje sterilizirala u pećnici , i to je prilično jednostavno, ali morate biti oprezni. Trebali bi imati na umu da ne stavljate hladno u vruće staklenke ili toplo u hladne staklenke. Ako to napravite, staklenke bi mogle puknuti, a to je opasno. Kad sterilizirate staklenke, imajte na umu da sterilizirati trebate i poklopce. Dakle , kako sterilizirati staklenke? Kao što sam rekla, ja ih steriliziram na u pećnici pa ću vas naučiti kako ih sterilizirati na upravo taj način (sve koje znam tako ih steriliziraju, tako da je to najbolji način i za mene). Prvo operite staklenke i poklopce . Koristite toplu vodu i deterdžent za pranje posuđa i budite sigurni da ste staklenke dobro očistili . Zagrijte pećnicu na 110 ° C / plinsku na broj 1, i nemojte povećavati temperaturu, jer bi staklo moglo prsnuti. Stavite staklenke i poklopce u pećnicu, pazeći da se ne dodiruju i ostaviti ih za 20-30 min. Najbolje ih je sterilizirati za vrijeme dok radite marmeladu ili žele, jer kao što sam već rekla, marmeladu trebate spremiti u vruće staklenke. Nakon 20-30 minuta , izvadite staklenke, a pri tome koristite debele rukavice za pećnicu, jer će staklenke biti prilično vruće . Kada su sterilizirane, možete spremiti marmeladu u njih. Također , staklenke možete sterilizirati u mikrovalnoj pećnici, perilici posuđa ili na štednjaku , ali budući da nikad nisam iskušala te metode ne mogu vam reći više o njima.

Za kraj jedan dobar savjet sam dobila od bake, kada sam prvi puta, prije nekoliko godina, počela izrađivati domaće marmelade. Ona mi je rekla da ih radim samo onda kada sam dobro raspoložena za izradu istih, jer ako želite da vaša marmelada bude dobra i ukusna, trebate ju raditi samo kada imate volju za to, a ne kada ste prisiljeni, i uživajte u ritualu izrade domaće marmelade .

Na kraju današnjeg posta pokazt ću vam što je novo u mom vrtu, nakon tjedan dana kiše