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

The Fruit of the Land

To eat the fruit of the land is to partake of the earth on which you live. In Idaho I ate potatoes gleaned from the farmers fields. In Connecticut I ate apples we picked from the orchards in autumn. Maine yielded wild strawberries and blueberries. Here in Arizona we gathered prickly pears and turned them into jelly.

On Thursday my friend Liz and I donned hats, grabbed paper bags and headed across the street to gather fruit. Though it was still early morning the day was hot and sultry. Our wide brimmed hats shielded our faces as we took our tongs and long handled forks to the fruit. We scouted out cacti bursting with pears and speared them into our bags. To pierce the fruit caused it to bleed a liquid the color and consistency of a nice Merlot. Picking the fruit involved twisting it off the green spine covered pad and hoping it would land in your bag. Liz used the tongs, which we discovered were the easiest method of picking, while I fumbled with the forks. One fork had two wide spaced tines that could slip beneath the fruit and pop it off, but then it would roll to the ground. The other fork had tines that were closer together and I used it in concert with the other to spear the fruit and hold it while the other fork popped the fruit loose.

We had no idea how much fruit we would need as this was my first time making prickly pear jelly. Liz has done it before, but not for a few years. The sweat poured down my face and burned my eyes with its saltiness, and still we kept on picking. We filled both bags three quarters full, then headed back to the house.

We washed the fruit in the sink, then loaded it into pots to boil, just barely covering the fruit with water. It boiled for 30 minutes, at which time we crushed it with a potato masher, then boiled it once again. When this process was done we strained the pulp through a colander to extract the juice, then we strained the juice through cheese cloth to extract any seeds or remaining spines. The result was a beautiful opaque raspberry colored liquid that turned clear like a gem when boiled with sugar to make jelly. The aroma of prickly pear soon filled the house as we processed pot after pot of prickly pears. It soon became evident that we had way over picked and we had more juice than we could ever process.

While Liz and I had both bought jelly jars, we had not bought enough sugar or pectin to process all the juice. I stayed with the boiling pots while Liz took a trip to the store to get more sugar and pectin. We filled every pot in the house with prickly pear juice. At one time we had three 6-quart pots with fruit and juice as well as two half gallon pots, 2 half gallon pitchers, and a 2-quart bowl with juice! We processed some of the juice into 28 jars of jelly, plus 6 jars of prickly pear syrup and we each kept 2 quarts of juice for later use!

The jelly jars look like gems lined up on the counter. The feeling of satisfaction is immeasurable. I don't quite know how to describe the prickly pear, for it really doesn't compare to any other fruit I have eaten. It's size and shape are somewhat like a Kiwi, it's texture is much the same also. The exterior of the fruit is cover in tiny hair-like spines; inside the flesh is deep violet-red. Here the seeds are arranged in vertical rows. The seeds are hard as stones and you would crack your teeth if you tried to eat them. The fruit itself is not very sweet, but its not bitter or sour either. It just needs a little sugar to sweeten it.

We ate fresh jeweled jelly on toast that very day. On the weekend I poured prickly pear syrup like blood over homemade pancakes. I have eaten the fruit of this new land and have incorporated its essence into my being. Perhaps my cells are made of Connecticut McIntosh apples, Idaho potatoes, Maine blueberries, and prickly pear fruit. Perhaps with these fruits as part of my being the memories of these places will linger until my brain is dead. Forever and always I will be a part of Sycamore Canyon, and it will be part of me, just like the other places I have lived in.