This Mint Jelly is the bomb! Anything mint that goes on lamb I love. We tend to use quite a lot of it on our lamb we love it so much. I wasn’t comfortable with the amount of sugar and other questionables in the store-bought varieties, knowing how much we used. So I set out to come up with my own, so we could eat as much as we wanted and not feel bad.

Over the years I experimented with different mint sauce and mint jelly recipes and have currently been making this one for the last few years. We love love love it!!!! In fact, in our house, we used to cook lamb just to get our fix of this fructose free mint jelly. It’s not unheard of to go through a whole jar in one meal. And what’s even better is, as a Mum, I not only know it contains no crap like colours, thickeners or flavours but also has lots of gorgeous grass-fed beef gelatine to nourish little tummies and the goodness from the apple cider vinegar.

We also have a recipe for a sweet dessert jelly loaded with gelatine and goodness. So if you love your jelly but hate the nasty stuff in the shop bought variety try our Gut loving fruit Jelly, you won’t be disappointed.

Mint Jelly

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups fresh mint

1 1/2 cups (375g) water

1 1/2 cups (375g) apple cider vinegar

1 cup (365g) Rice Malt Syrup or maple syrup

3 Tbsp grass-fed beef gelatine

1/3 cup water to bloom gelatine

What to do

Stovetop

1. Wash and de-stem mint leaves and tear/crush/bruise to release their delicious oils
2. Place mint leaves, water, rice malt/maple syrup, 1/2 cup of the apple cider vinegar and bring to boil
3. Simmer for 10 mins
4. Add the gelatine to the 1/3 cup of water and leave to bloom for 10 mins
5. add the bloomed gelatine to the hot mix and stir gently until completely dissolved (helps to break up into small pieces before adding)
6. Remove from heat and leave to steep until the temperature reaches around 30 degrees Celsius
7. Add the remaining cup of acv if using (adding after the temperature drops preserves the live culture in the vinegar)
8. Strain out the leaves if desired and pour into sterilised jars
9. Place in refrigerator to set before using

Thermomix

1. Wash and de-stem mint leaves and chop 5 sec speed 6
2. Scrape down bowl and add water, rice malt/maple syrup and 1/2 cup of the apple cider vinegar (add all if just using white vinegar) and cook 10 mins, varoma temp, speed 2
3. Add the gelatine to the 1/3 cup of water and leave to bloom for 10 mins
4. Add the bloomed gelatine to the hot mix and mix 15 seconds speed 2 (helps to break up into small pieces before adding). Repeat as necessary until all dissolved. Try not to go fast as it can introduce a lot of air into the finished product and also affects the clarity of the finished jelly.
5. Leave to steep until the 37 deg light goes off
6. Add the remaining cup of acv if using (adding after the temperature drops preserves the live culture in the vinegar) and mix 5 sec, sp 3.
7. Strain out the leaves if desired and pour into sterilised jars
8. Place in refrigerator to set before using

Makes about 3 1/2 cups

NOTES:

• If not using acv you can skip the cooling down step and just bottle straight away, but if you have the time it helps to get the most flavour from the mint leaves
• The rice malt syrup amount can be reduced but if you do consider replacing 1/2 of the vinegar with water as the vinegar be overpowering with less sweetness.
• I have kept this is the fridge for months in sterilised jars and it has been fine, but please do what feels right for you. I have boiled the finished jars in water for 20 mins to sterilise when I made up a large batch to preserve some of our mint bounty before winter. Either way, I have never had a jar long enough to go bad.
• I recommend storing in the fridge. I did leave a boiled jar on the bench for a few weeks to see what happened. I’m not sure if it was “bad” as such but it had a different smell to those in the fridge so to be on the safe side I ditched it.
• Straining the mint or leaving it in is a personal preference, I take it our most of the time as it is no longer a nice green colour, but if you leave it in it still tastes wicked. You could even add some fresh mint when you add the acv to the cooled mix if you liked to introduce some vibrant green back into the jelly.