All of the things that I have been nurturing are beginning to bear fruit, both literally and figuratively. While I should be studying for boards, I could not let all of the tasty fruit go to waste. Because the results were so delicious, I decided to share the recipe with you all.

Mulberries are the fruit of my childhood. As a kid, there was not a summer that went by where I was not gathering as much of this fruit as I could eat, leaving only the purple-blue stains from the juice behind. The fruit contains a variety of nutrients and fiber and in traditional Chinese medicine it gets used in formulas to help with constipation and promoting body fluids.

This year was the first that I cooked with them, and the mulberry jelly was the best of the experiments. Fruit jams and jellies are easy to make. You can make them with pretty much any fruit you like. Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients

•   Mulberries approximately 2 pounds
•    1½ cups water
•    Box of no-sugar Pectin like Sure-Jell
  (You can usually find it next to canning jars in the grocery store), 1.75 oz.
•    1¼ cups Sugar
•    1 T. Lemon Juice or 1 tsp Citric Acid
•    1/2 t. vanilla extract
•    1-2 T. of cinnamon
•     1 T. of grated ginger or ginger powder

(The last 3 ingredients are optional and can be adjusted to taste)

Process

1. To begin, put washed berries in a pot with the 1/2 cup of water. At this time, I set up an additional pot of boiling water to put my canning jars in. Boil the jars and lids for at least 10 minutes to sterilize them.
2. Bring the berry mixture to a boil for about 10 minutes, mashing them with a fork or potato masher.
3. Once the big chunks are broken down, pour the berry mixture through a fine strainer so that only the juice remains.
4. Put the mulberry juice back in the pot and add in the sugar, pectin, and other ingredients. (The pectin directions may ask you to set aside 1/4 of a cup of the sugar. Mulberries are a low pectin fruit. The pectin helps them to jell without cooking down the mixture with a ridiculous amount of sugar. Apples are a high pectin fruit, so potentially, you could add them to most jam or jelly during the cooking process to help with the consistency).
5.  Bring to a rolling boil for about 1 minute, and then remove from the heat.
6. Now you can ladle the mixture into your jars. Leave about 1/2 of space at the top and secure the lids.

I leave them out on the counter until they have completely cooled; overnight is fine if that is how the timing works. Then you can refrigerate if you like, but only open jars really need to be refrigerated. Enjoy!

Check out more healhy recipes from Sarah here!