I love the taste of fresh, summertime melons. Unfortunately, melons are not in season year long. This summer, I sought out jelly recipes that featured some of my favorite summertime melons. Since jellies keep for a year, it’s an easy way to bring that favorite, summertime fruit into the cold of winter.
A lot of people have probably tried honeydew, but when I saw a beautiful golden honeydew at my market, I knew it was going to be the center of my next jelly recipe. Golden honeydew has a beautiful, bright yellow skin, with snow white flesh inside.
If you’re wondering what golden honeydew jelly tastes like, let me tell you — it tastes like a cross between candied melon and a lemon drop. Who doesn’t love both of those things?
Ingredients:
2 cups strained melon juice
4 Tbsp. lemon juice
5 cups sugar
1/2 cup white balsamic or white wine vinegar
6 oz. (2 pouches) liquid pectin
Quantity: ~5 half pint mason jars
Directions:
- First things first, prepare you jars and lids for canning. Get them into a boiling pot and ready to go. They’ll need to be in the hot water bath for at least 10 minutes prior to being filled so go ahead and get them going.
Golden Honeydew Melon
- Now we have to extract the juice from the melon. If you have a juicer, this step will be easy. For those of us living life without a juicer, cut the melon from the skin and remove the seeds. Chop the melon into manageable pieces and either toss it in your blender or take an immersion stick to it. Once you’ve juiced down your melon you will need to strain out any remaining pulp or seeds. You should end up with somewhere around 4 cups of golden honeydew juice. You will only need 2 cups of juice for this recipe. I suggest either freezing the remainder of the juice or planning on doing 2 batches of this jelly. I froze my extra juice to make jelly with my friend at a later date.
- In a large pot on the stovetop, combine 2 cups of your strained juice with 5 cups of sugar, and 1/2 cup of white balsamic vinegar. Bring this mixture to a full roiling boil over high heat for a full minute, stirring constantly.
Golden Honeydew mixture before boiling
- When the mixture comes to a full rolling boil, stir in 2 pouches of liquid pectin. Bring the mixture, again, to a full rolling boil for an additional minute.
- Remove the pan from the heat and skim off any foam from the top.
- I generally use the minute I’m waiting for my mixture to boil for the second time to pull out my jars and lids and lay them out on a towel, ready to fill.
- Using a canning funnel, pour the hot jelly into the prepared jars. Make sure to leave 1/4″ head space.
- Apply the lids and rings to the jars.
- Return the jars into the hot water bath, making sure they have at least an inch of water covering the tops of the jars. Allow them to process for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off move your pot off the burner and allow them to sit in the water for 5 minutes before you transfer all the jars to either a rack to cool or onto a countertop.
- Don’t forget to label and date all of your jars. Jelly can be stored and used within a year of processing.
What if…?:
- If for any reason a lid buckles or does not seal properly, don’t panic! This is a natural process of canning and it doesn’t mean anything is “wrong” with what you’ve made. Just simply put that jar(s) in the refrigerator and plan on eating it within 2 weeks.
- If you have more jelly than jars to put it in simply put the remainder in a dish, cover, and place in the refrigerator. It’s safe to eat it for up to 2 weeks, and is a great way to sample your jelly without opening a jar.
Your Golden Honeydew Recipe has lemon juice listed in the ingredients, but the instructions never indicate when to add the lemon juice. Please review and correct. Thank you. Sharon.mills@att.net