Today we’re talking about lilac jelly!

Last year I had made peony jelly, and was so intrigued about trying to make other floral jellies. Many lilac jelly recipes that I read about turned out to be a yellowish-green colour, unless they added a berry or food colouring for added colour (which is totally fine if you want to go this route!). I decided to try the same trick I used for my peony jelly, and blended my lilacs right in! This not only gives this jelly a gorgeous pink colour, it also bumps up the flavour significantly.

Lilacs have a floral taste that is complimented by adding a splash of lemon juice to the jelly (this also helps balance the sweetness). You can enjoy this jelly on cream cheese and crackers (it’s perfect for fancy tea parties and floral dessert boards), toast, use it to fill thumbprint cookies or doughnuts, and more.

lilac jelly

recipe: Kelsey Siemens

yields: three 8 oz jars of jelly

ingredients

1 1/2 cups loosely packed lilac petals, removed from green stems

2 cups hot water

3 cups sugar

1 package (49g) pectin

3 tbsp lemon juice

to make

Wash three 8 oz jars and lids with hot, soapy water and place onto a small rimmed baking pan and place into the oven. Then turn the oven on to 160 degrees F and let the jars heat up gradually in the oven. Let them sit in the oven for about 15 minutes, turn the heat off, and leave the jars inside until jelly is ready (you want to pour hot jelly into hot jars so that the glass doesn’t break from temperature shock).

Next prepare the jelly. In a medium saucepan, combine lilacs and hot water and let steep for about 10 minutes. Then transfer to a blender or use an immersion blender to blend the lilacs until smooth. Strain out and add water if needed to equal 2 cups again.

Transfer lilac water back to the saucepan, add pectin, and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil for 1 minute, and then add sugar and boil for 1 more minute. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Remove warm jars from the oven, and pour hot jelly immediately into the jars. You can proceed with a full canning process if you want shelf stable jelly, but I prefer to just keep them in my fridge or freezer.

Place jar lids on top, and allow to come to room temperature before transferring to the fridge. Jelly can take up to a week to fully set, although mine set within a few hours! Enjoy within a couple months.