At the moment I feel like I’m on a bit of a voyage of discovery, realising that some things I thought would be tricky to make are actually really easy to make. Last week I shared how to make butter (so stupidly simple, you really should try it), and today I’m sharing how to make jelly from fresh fruit juice.

My two boys love jelly. On a Sunday morning we’ll often head to our local garden centre for brunch where, in addition to toast, beans and sausage they always ask for a pot of jelly and it disappears first (we’re not always the best at saving pudding for after dinner in our house – what about you?). As I was recently sent some The Juice fruit juices to review I thought it would be a great opportunity to make some jelly.

This jelly is really simple to make with just two ingredients – fruit juice and gelatine to get it to set (you can use other drinks such as orange squash if you prefer). If you’re the sort of parent that worries about what goes into what your little ones are eating and prefer to avoid artificial flavours, colours and other additives then this is the perfect solution. A quick check of the ingredients of some pre-made jellies online revealed a few of the things you may prefer to avoid. Personally I don’t worry too much about these things (although I do often worry that I should!) but giving these to the boys for their pudding and seeing how much they enjoy them, makes me feel a tiny bit smug :-).

The lack of artificial colours means that they’re not as vibrant as some pre-made jellies, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the boys at all.

So easy to make, but…

I had such ambitious plans to make a beautifully moulded jelly to share with you. I’ve practiced and practiced but sadly I’ve not yet mastered the art.

A fair bit of googling suggested that the trick is that once the jelly has set, you pop it into a pot of warm water to help loosen the edges. I’ve found that this starts to melt the jelly meaning that it comes out of the mould easily (great so far), but melting the edges of the jelly means that you lose the definition of the shape. Fine if you’re doing something simple like a big dome, but really no good if you’re attempting cute little dinosaurs as I was!

If anyone is a whizz at freeing jelly from it’s mould then please come and share your tips in the comments. I’m going to keep practicing and I hope to be back soon to share the secret.

Two ingredient fruit juice jelly

Active Time: 6 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 6 minutes (for small jellies, large jellies will take longer to set) – I’d recommend making them the day before to avoid any unset jelly dramas.

Makes 9 mini children’s jellies – these were served in mini silicone cupcake cases and the boys liked to have two or three each.

Ingredients

• 400 ml fruit juice
• 4 sheets Dr. Oetker Platinum Grade Leaf Gelatine*

*I’m rarely so specific about which brands you should use for a recipe, but gelatine comes in lots of different strengths so the amount you need to get a perfectly set jelly varies from brand to brand. If you have a different brand then make sure you check the right ratio of gelatine to juice on the back of the packet – I prefer a firmer set jelly (I think that’s how I had jelly when I was little) so use a little less juice than recommended.

Method

1. Fill a bowl with cold water and pop the leaf gelatine in to soften for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the fruit juice in a saucepan on a low heat – you want it to be hot but not boiling. Once hot remove the juice from the heat.
3. Once the gelatine has softened remove it from the cold water and squeeze out any excess liquid. Pop it into the hot juice and stir until it has melted.
4. Pour into your serving dishes and put them into the fridge to set. Refrigerate until the jelly is firm.

Nutritional Information (per 100ml)

Calories: 54 kcal (3%), Fat: 0.1g (0%), Saturated Fat: 0.1g (1%), Carbohydrates: 12.1g (5%), Sugar: 9.9g (11%), Fibre: 0.1g (0%), Protein: 0.1g (0%), Salt: 0.0g (0%)

0.5 of your 5-a-day

This is the estimated nutritional information per 100ml. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you want to learn more about how this is calculated.

Free From/Suitable For…

• Gluten-Free
• Egg-Free
• Dairy-Free
• Nut-Free
• Soy-Free
• Corn-Free

The ingredients for this recipe are commonly available free from all these allergens. However, please ensure you double-check allergen information for all ingredients.