This weekend’s new food first was creating a jelly. I’ve done the basic kind, melting blocks of pre-flavoured jelly, in the past but this time I was using a sachet of powdered gelatin.

For my main jelly, I strained off some of the liquid from a batch of rhubarb harvested from the garden and boiled up with a little sugar and a bunch of Sweet Cicely (a wonderful herb that greatly reduces the amount of sugar needed for sweetening). I reheated this vividly coloured juice so it was hot but not boiling and then stirred in an appropriate amount of the gelatin. It took some stirring and there were some coagulated blobs I had to fish out with a spoon but I had enough for a couple of ramekins. The resulting jelly came out very well after a few hours resting in the fridge, a pleasant mixture of sweet and sour in the taste and an ecclesiastical purple colour (it would be perfect for serving up to a discerning bishop).

There was not enough liquid to use all of the sachet so I mixed the rest with some hot coffee. That was also a good result although a bit on the bitter side and with an unpalatable layer of jellied grounds at the bottom of the glass. Dishing up with ice cream offset the bitterness; next time, I will try this with cold-brewed and more carefully filtered coffee to reduce the bitterness allowing the full riches of the coffee to shine through.