Perhaps one of the most delicious, light and healthy desserts for children and adults is jelly. Today, you can easily buy it in any store, or you can cook it at home, spending about an hour on the cooking process. This exquisite delicacy can become a real decoration of the festive table.
Jelly - a delicacy from France
Today you can find a lot of different recipes describing the process of making this dessert.
The word "jelly" was invented by the famous masters of French cuisine. This is what they called the congealed mass of sugar, fruit juice and gelatin.
The standard set of ingredients includes a wide variety of berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and others), fruit juice and gelatin powder, which has recently been replaced by pectin or agar-agar.
Pectin is an absolutely harmless plant substance with gluing properties.
Pectin can be used to make any jelly, but in the process it is important to correctly calculate the proportions, otherwise the jelly will turn out to be opaque.
Agar-agar is a product obtained by processing plant mucus of red and brown algae. Like gelatin, pectin has binding properties.
Agar-agar (or simply agar) is prepared according to the same principle as gelatin. It should be pre-soaked in cold water for 40 minutes, and then boiled with the amount of juice necessary for making jelly.
Secrets of delicious jelly
The real housewife has her own secret of making delicious jelly. Someone adds a few drops of wine or liquor to the recipe, someone puts canned berries and fruits instead of fresh berries or dilutes the resulting mass with sweet syrup. But there are several rules that must be followed in order to prepare a truly tasty treat that will serve as a table decoration if served, for example, for a child's birthday.
1. A few drops of lemon juice will help improve the taste of the jelly.
2. Do not use aluminum dishes for making jelly - they can spoil the taste of the dessert.
3. Before kneading, it is necessary to warm the bottom of the dishes - this way you can avoid the process of lumps.
Layer by layer: raspberry delight
To pamper loved ones with sweet jelly with raspberries (or any other berry), you need to take:
- 500 ml of water;
- 150 g granulated sugar;
- 30 g of gelatin powder;
- 250 g fresh or frozen berries.
Put the water to boil in a ladle, and then add sugar and berries there. In a separate bowl, mix gelatin with water. After swelling, combine this consistency with fruit syrup. The resulting mass should be laid out in bowls and put in the cold for three hours.
It is important to be patient when making jelly. When gelatin or any other binding ingredient is ready, fruits and berries are cut, you can safely start the magic. Slowly, layer by layer, you need to lay all the components, waiting for complete solidification. You can also add milk, sour cream, chocolate, cottage cheese and even champagne to the jelly. The main thing is that the dessert turns out to be transparent and the berries frozen inside it are visible.
