Elderberry syrup… Again.

Once again we have been several days without a blog. I have a stack of pictures and will try to get caught up.

This was on Monday, August 10th. Mommy was at the fair, getting the nutrition and food preservation building decorated, and taking in all the entries that people brought in to drop off. Evie and Ellie were helping, Daddy was home with the two smaller humans, trying to get some cleaning done before we went over to help decorate.

I re-boiled the jelly that didn’t jell, this time heating it to the regulation 220 degrees, and keeping it there several minutes for good measure.

I put it back into the jelly jars and water bathed them again. I even put some on a cold plate, and it jelled, or seemed to. But in the jars they would not jell.

Ellie says it reminded her of the part in Little Women when Meg is sitting and crying because the jelly wouldn’t jell. There was no sitting and less crying involved, but otherwise it was a very similar situation.

So we solved the problem by writing “Elderberry Syrup” on the jar lids, and putting them in the pantry. The little drizzle that was left over we put in some pudding mix and made into elderberry pudding, which was not the tastiest pudding I have ever tasted.

But the saga is not over yet!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!

On the Monday after fair, August 17th (or maybe it was Tuesday? It’s all so long ago now!) we picked more elderberries.

It must have been the Monday, because I took a massive bowl of elderberry with me and stripped them during Men’s group. This is what 11 Lbs of Elderberry looks like.

4 LBs of them went into the dehydrator, and came out as only about 7 or 8 ounces!

A pound each into two half gallons of cordial and one of elixir (cordial has sugar, elixir has honey, both have alcohol).

And the rest into jelly! With the help of the Ball website’s new elderberry jelly recipe (updated as of 2025) we successfully got an elderberry jelly, and boy did it jell! The test batch in a ramikin in the refrigerator was slightly stiffer than jello with a delightful elderberry foretaste, but a little bit too sweet aftertaste. We had it on ice cream on scones later on in the week.