Elderberry Jelly Should I Bother?

[ClaryS]

I've picked and stripped and boiled elderberries with one lemon and am busy straining the juice through muslin .Problem is the resultant liquid doesn't taste very nice just mainly watery lemon. I've even tried adding a little sugar on a spoon to taste it to see if that improves flavour but it doesn't. So, has anyone tried this jelly and does it taste nice? If not could I use the liquid to make elderberry wine instead?

[boxtops]

Did you put the pectin in? http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/elderberry_jelly/

[ClaryS]

boxtops I haven't put anything in it yet, just extracted the juice and it doesn't taste very nice so am wondering if I should just bin it rather than waste the sugar and pectin.

[dzug2]

Elderberries do (and taste) better when mixed with some other fruit - eg crab apples

[jamesnan]

I made blackberry and sloe jelly the other day, and it is delicious so perhaps you could add some cooked blackberries to the elderberries and go on from there.

[kettledrum]

I always mix my elderberries with sloes; they give a really nice flavour and help it to set. You shouldn't need to add pectin. I expect crab apples, or cooking apples would do just as well.

[ClaryS]

thank you for your replies but I poured the juice down the sink before I read the last few. As the elderberries are dripping from the trees around our cottage, along with about three trees of pink crab apples, I will go collecting this afternoon and try again with crab apples and elderberries. The elderberry juice on its own tasted vile, like the taste you get in your mouth after you've been sick (sorry). I'm making sloe gin this weekend so make keep a few back and try some jelly. Thank you again for your ideas.

[kettledrum]

Good luck!

[boxtops]

I'd always put in all the ingredients at the beginning - you can't tell what the outcome will be, part-way through the process. I made green tomato chutney the other day and it tasted horrid before I'd put in the sultanas.

Lucky you, having all those raw materials to hand!