Making Prickly Pear Jelly

A few weeks ago my friends and I picked prickly pears in the Sonoran Desert. We processed the fruit into juice which we then stored in bottles in the refrigerator for a week or two. Click on the highlighted link to read about Picking and Processing Prickly Pears. Finally the day came when we could get together and make this jewel-like jelly. My friend, Liz, brought her jelly jars and sugar and we began.

Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly recipe:

2 1/2 cups prickly pear juice

1 box pectin (Sure-jell or Certo)

1-3 Tablespoons lemon or lime juice

3 1/2 cups sugar

First we assemble all the ingredients on the counter. Since we are making multiple batches we pre-measure the sugar into bowls and place a package of pectin with each one. We leave the lemon juice by the stove with a Tablespoon to make measuring and adding the lemon juice easier.

To make the jelly you will need jelly jars, lids, and bands.

A 6 to 8-quart pot to boil the jelly in.

A small pot to sterilize the lids.

Wash jars, bands and lids. I like to wash my jars and bands in the dishwasher, then keep them there to stay warm until I fill them. I wash the lids and keep them in the dish drainer until it's time to place them in the small pot. This pot I fill about half full. Bring to a boil, then shut off and place lids in scalding water. Do Not boil lids. I have also found you do not want to just leave the lids sitting in this water or they will start to rust, so I only place as many as I think I am going to use in the water while the jelly is boiling.

Pour 2 1/2 cups of prickly pear juice into a large pot. Add powdered pectin and bring to a fast boil stirring constantly.

Add sugar, lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of butter (if desired to prevent excessive foaming). Stir until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a hard boil and boil for three minutes. (Do not stir constantly at this point.)

Remove from heat and skim off foam. Pour into sterilized jars filling to 1/8 inch from top. Wipe jar rims and threads. Seal with lids and bands. When you have enough jars, place in boiling water bath and process for 5 minutes at a gentle boil. Adjust for altitude according to directions included in pectin box.

Since we are making numerous batches of jelly, we have more than one pot for boiling jelly in. One of us would measure and mix juice and pectin and mind the jelly while the other would skim off jelly and fill jars. Here Liz pre-measures the juice for the next batch.

Water bath canner, boiling jelly, and pot with lids all on the same stove top. In mid August it sure gets hot in the house!

The jars go onto a rack and are lowered into the pot. Make sure the water is 1 to 2 inches above the tops of the jars. Add boiling water as necessary to maintain this level. When timing is up, lift jars from water-bath with rack.

Place on towel to cool. Separate jars to speed cooling process. Do not over tighten bands.

Here are some tips we learned from making jelly this year:

By processing the juice on one day and letting it cool and settle before we made jelly it allowed more sediment to sink to the bottom of the jugs. When we made our jelly we didn't shake up the juice, but poured carefully from the top, leaving the sediment behind. This gave us a clear, jewel-like jelly.

When making multiple batches of jelly, wash pots between each batch and do not stir down crystals from sides of pot or you will end up with more floaters when you go to skim off the foam.

The jelly recipe above will yield approximately 2 pint jars or 4-8 ounce jars of jelly.

For large batches this is the ratio we figured out: 3 gallons of raw prickly pears yields 1 gallon of juice. It takes 1 gallon of juice plus 10 pounds of sugar to yield 1 dozen pint jars or 2 dozen 8 ounce jars of jelly.

If time is an issue, the juice can be processed and frozen for preparation at a later date. Thaw before using.

Happy Jelly making. Now go find some "tunas" and try this for yourself.

Photographer's note: All of today's photography is copyrighted by Kathiesbirds. I used the Nikon D80 with the 18 to 70 mm lens. Click on any photo to enlarge for better viewing.

Picking and Processing Prickly Pears

(Click on photos to enlarge for better view.)

On Tuesday, August 5, my friends Sherri, Liz, and Liz's granddaughter, Sarava, went prickly pear picking. We learned from last year that the weapon of choice for picking the fruit is a pair of tongs. These long-handle barbecue tongs work especially well. Just grab and twist.

Sherri smiles as she picks her first fruit. A hat is always wise to wear in the desert.

Liz joins the picking. Notice her gloves and dark sunglasses.

Some cactus bushes are quite large.

Sarava lends a hand with picking.

We filled 2 buckets and 2 plastic grocery bags with fruit. Here we are setting up to process. The large blue pot will be used to collect juice as it cools.

Tools needed: 3 large pots for boiling the fruit. One of ours was a spaghetti pot with a built in strainer. If you don't have one of these you will need a strainer instead.

One small sieve

1- 2 quart pitcher

1 package of cheese cloth

1 potato masher

We are doing this in a two step process, so today we just processed the juice. We will make the jelly next week. If you plan to do the same,you will need gallon jugs to store the juice in your refrigerator or freezer. The juice can be frozen and made into jelly at a much later date.

Bucket of pears. The blue bucket was also full.

Wash pears in water and place in pot. It is not necessary to try to remove the spines as they will be strained out later. Fill with enough water to come up to edges of top fruit. Do not leave extra fruit sitting in wash water as the juice will start to leach out.

Place on stove and boil for 30 minutes.

Halfway through boiling time mash with masher.

Strain pulp and juice through strainer. Let extra juice drip from pulp. It is okay to mash the fruit once again while it is dripping.

Filter juice minus pulp through cheesecloth covered sieve. This removes the spines that were present on the pears along with any remaining seeds. DO NOT squeeze the cheese cloth as this may force spines through into juice. We used the cheese cloth in 3 layers and cut off a section large enough to fit our sieve as it came out of the package.

Pulp after straining.

Steaming juice.

Here you can see the spines and seeds strained out by the cheese cloth. The strained juice is in the pitcher, the unstrained juice is still in the pot.

We would have 2 pots boiling at once and set the timer for 30 minutes once the water started to boil.

I poured hot juice over ice and mixed it with ginger ale, a refreshing treat! Look at this lovely color!

Three and a half gallons of juice ready to be made into Prickly Pear Jelly next week. We started picking prickly pears at 9:45 a.m. We were done picking by 10:30. We were done processing juice and we had the kitchen cleaned up by 2:30. For each batch of jelly we will need 2 1/2 cups of juice which will yield about 5-8ounce jars. You do the math. We could be at this for a long time!

One word of caution: If you use plastic bags to put your prickly pears in while picking,throw them out immediately when you get home. We did not get any spines in our hands while picking or even washing the fruit, but we did get spines in our hands from touching the plastic bags that some of the pears were in. We kept a pair of tweezers nearby as these tiny spines are very painful! Remove and wash all your clothing afterwards as they may have spines in them also.

Note: All of today's photography is by Kathie with the Nikon D80 using the 18-70mm lens and the 70 to 300mm lens.

Skywatch Friday: Pickly Pear Sky

(Prickly Pear Cactus and Fruit against a Monsoon Sky: Photo by kathie 7-23-08)

(Shooting data: Lens: 18-70mm F/3.5-4.5 G,Focal Length: 70mm, 1/200 sec - F/10)

Click on photos to enlarge for best view.

Today I am out picking prickly pears to turn into yet another batch of Prickly Pear Jelly. Liz and I did this last year and, though it was hot, it was so much fun to eat The Fruit of the Land. Here in Sycamore Canyon the cactus fruit is ripening and the birds are eating it, turning their normally white droppings raspberry and garnet. Not something you want to think about when you are eating jelly!

(Prickly Pear Jelly; Photo by kathie 7-24-08)

Shooting data Lens: 18-70mm F/3.5-4.5 G,Focal Length: 60mm,1/60 sec - F/4.5

Pickly Pear Fruit and the Bully Bird

After days of rain and humidity the sun has returned again and so has the dry air. Outside the birds are flocking to my feeders. Over the weekend a lark sparrow was hanging around the feeders on the north side of the house. I had never seen one before except in a book, but instantly recognized it's pied face. The next day a pair of Gambel's quail showed up. The female was atop the quail block I had put out, while the male bird stayed on the other side of the view fence. When a young man rode by on his skateboard the two birds took off, walking at first, then running, and finally flying across the street to the desert beyond. I saw them again on Tuesday, but I haven't seen them since. Today a pair of lesser goldfinches came to my backyard feeder. While I had seen them in the canyon before, none had come into my yard. The larger house finches monopolized the feeder, but they managed to get at the portals sometimes.

In the desert the prickly pear are bursting with wine-colored fruit. The shape of the fruit is like that of a wineglass and each green pad seems to balance a row of goblets along its perimeter. The house finches are stained a raspberry color from eating the fruit. The crowns of their heads, their necks and throats all washed in it. On a walk in the desert I found a half-eaten fruit on the ground, most of the seeds gone from the interior. In a nearby mesquite tree a young verdin chirped, it's throat stained the same reddish-purple. Apparently the prickly pear cacti feed more than just javelinas.

This afternoon I watched a white-winged dove take over the feeders in my back yard. I was sitting out back writing when I heard this strange sound. It was a mixture of a squawk and the sound of a hand saw going through wood. I looked up to see what was making such a sound and noticed a white-winged dove on the ground under the feeder. It was all puffed up, his head was low, and he was charging the other birds with an extended beak. Like a medieval jouster, he used his beak like a lance. The other doves flew off, leaving the patch of earth beneath to the bully, but that was not enough for him. The little house finches were feeding from the thistle seed and peanut feeders above. This bully bird flew up to those feeders and chased them away also. Though he could not perch on the small metal projections or grasp the wire of the peanut feeder, he still charged at the tube and wire cages chasing them all away. After surveying his domain from atop the feeder, he flew to the ground again, patrolling the spot beneath. Like all bullies, he guarded his territory viciously.

The desert offers up its beauty and bounty, but at a price. The lush green growth hides thorns beneath; the cute birds in my yard are dominated by bullies; the jewel colored prickly pear fruit leaves a stain behind. Life in the desert isn't much different than life in the world. There is beauty and danger all around us and we must notice both, and if we are stained by life, then it only shows that we are partaking of it.