Dandelion Jelly

My friend posted pics of her Dandelion Jelly on Facebook........and I, being such a big fan of foraging, thought "I have to make that too!".
Now, I've heard of Dandelion Wine, and I know that Dandelion leaves have great nutritional value and can be added to salads or even juiced (tho I haven't tried that yet)......but, I'd never heard of Dandelion Jelly.
I made my first foray into jams & jellies last year, and am, by no stretch of the imagination, (not even in my own head) any sort of expert.  I am, at most, an eager & optimistic novice.  But, that's never stopped me before, nor now!   So I quickly went out in the yard (in my jammies even) and gathered all of the little yellow flower heads I could find.....which, unfortunately was not as much as I had hoped for.  After lawn mowing last week, I had tons of the fuzzy tops popped up all over the yard, but the yellow ones were hard to come by.  After 2 trips around our little acre, I had about 4 cups of dandelion heads.....which luckily, was just about enough for the recipe I had found online (trimmed petals came to about 2 cups).
If you've never made jelly.....you may not know that pectin is required to make it jell.  Or maybe you do know that, if you've been reading your jelly labels.  However, the first jam recipe I made was from a magazine article, and of course  I wanted to make it "right now".  I didn't have any pectin in my kitchen as I've never used it before, but I did have tons of berries & sugar on hand so I didn't let the absence of pectin stop me.  I will find a way!  So I started searching on the internet to see if it was possible to make jam without pectin.  It was in this search that I became aware of what pectin is: its naturally derived primarily from the skins (cell walls) & cores of tart, under ripe or citrus fruits.  That part is great!  However, the commercial processing of pectin leaves a bit to be desired.  And here, there's lots of room for debate, opinion, etc........but, for me.......the idea of processing & washing with alcohols, ammonia, calcium salts, etc. does not sound appealing.  Some will say that these are all "natural" and the finished product is simply a usable form of the original pectin.....and they may very well be right.  But....for me.....I prefer minimal processing, and prefer to do any necessary processing myself.  Which is why I refused to go out and buy pectin!
My triple berry jam of last year, turned out amazing!   However, the more I'm reading about pectin, it could be a hit or miss with low pectin fruit jams.  Maybe I got lucky with my berries, as they are not exceeedingly high in pectin.  Or maybe I just cooked it long & hard enough to jell.At any rate, all of the dandelion jelly recipes I find require pectin.  I did, however, also find recipes for making my own pectin!  Obviously.....that is the course I will take.  You can make your own pectin, basically, by boiling tart apples, peels & cores, as well as lemons.  So I decided to cut out the middle step by simply adding a cut up green apple & lemon to the pot of dandelions, water & sugar. (oh...forgot to mention I used 1 cup of organic sugar, 2 cups of organic dehydrated cane juice  & 1 cup of stevia---sugar is an important component, and may have been a mistake to use substitute sugars for the majority) I assumed boiling it all together would certainly squeeze out all of the needed pectins. 

 I guess it's not quite that easy, because all I ended up with was dandelion syrup.

  It was tasty, believe me, however I couldn't come up with an acceptable use for it.  I decided to try making the pectin separately, and add it in to my dandelion syrup.  I didn't, however, want to make a giant batch of pectin, so I thought that 1 apple and 1 lemon should be sufficient.  I juiced the lemon into my pot, sliced it thinly, as well as the apple....added water to cover, and boiled....and boiled....added more water, and continued to boil......then went back to my computer as it continued to boil....checked it a few times...as it continued to boil....all while also searching on the internet.....thought maybe I should check it one more time as it should almost be done.....and discovered that it had boiled down completely....Yikes!As you can see.....I am not overly patient.  When it comes to watching a cooking pot, or waiting to make something until I have all of the proper ingredients.......I believe in improvising, and optimistically believe it will all work out.  Sometimes it do, sometimes it don't!Well.....although the pot was blackened, as well as just a couple of small spots on the lemon rinds......I didn't think it looked or smelled bad, so I added a little water and continued to cook til it looked syrup like.  Then I strained all of the solids out, and  poured it into a new, clean  pot to boil a little more.  This, according to all instructions (not my own revisions).  It seemed to be approaching an appropriate consistency. I brought out my dandelion syrup and placed in a different pot, brought to a boil and added my pectin syrup.  I continued to boil for awhile (I don't like to time things).  It certainly seemed thicker than it had been, so at least there was that.  I decided it had boiled long enough, so I poured it into a hot canning jar.  This time there was only a few tablespoonfuls in the 2nd jar.   Its still cooling as I write this.....but, I couldn't wait any longer, so I popped a piece of bread in the toaster, and the smaller jar in the freezer, to hopefully firm a bit more.

Its still a bit runny, but didn't just soak into the bread.  And....it is still warm after all, even after being in the fridge for a minute.  I am hoping...that after it has completely cooled, and has been stored in the fridge for awhile, it will appear much more jelly like......but, you know what?   If it doesn't jell.....it doesn't matter....because it sure tastes dandy!