plum & mandarin jelly

This dish serves 12. It takes about 15 minutes to prepare plus 2 hours to set.

Ingredients

1 kg jar or tin of blood plums and juice

2 x 375 g tins of mandarin pieces and juice

3 tblsps brown sugar

the juice of a lemon

1.5 tblsps agar agar

How it’s done

1. Make the jelly: Pour all juice, including the squeezed lemon, into a medium-sized saucepan, and heat to boiling. Turn down the heat, then add agar agar and brown sugar, stirring until they are dissolved. Add the fruit, then turn the heat off.
2. Set the jelly: Pour jelly into a large jelly mould or, if you prefer, a number of small moulds. Put the dishes onto a flat tray and leave them for a couple of hours to set in the fridge. Agar agar sets much more quickly than gelatine, and it’s a seaweed product.
3. Remove jelly from the mould: After a couple of hours, poke the jelly gently with your finger. If it springs away   from your touch, then it’s done. Take it from the fridge, and put it in a large container of hot water for 20 seconds or so. This loosens the outside layer of jelly, ensuring it holds its shape when you upend it on a plate.
4. Serve it: If you’ve used a large mould, you can slice the jelly as you would a cake. Otherwise serve individual jellies on exquisite plates, with a small amount of unsweetened, pouring cream (pouring cream without gelatine, that is).

Tags: agar agar, dessert, mandarin, plum, recipe, vegan, vegetarian