Rhubarb and White Wine Jelly

Most people think of jelly as something to serve children for dessert,

but it can be made quite sophisticated for an adult dessert.

Fruit and wine always bring pleasure,

and this dessert,

even if it appears simple,

makes a great surprise to complete a special meal.

Ingredients:

1Kg rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

370ml caster sugar, plus more, if needed

Zest and juice of 1 orange,

500ml water

8 leaves gelatine (or 2 envelopes granulated gelatine)

About 175-200ml dry white wine

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Directions:

Preheat the oven to 190C.

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Put the rhubarb into a large rectangular ovenproof dish (12 x 8 inch pie plate works well). Sprinkle over the sugar, add the orange juice and zest, and 2 cups of water. Cover with lid or foil. Bake for 1 hour. Take out of the oven and let cool with the lid removed.

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Strain the liquid carefully into a large measuring cup. This yields about 3 cups rhubarb juice.

Put the pulp aside for use elsewhere - you can freeze it for use in a crumble pie, or trifle or serve separately with custard as a desert.

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For granulated gelatine: soften it in 60ml of the wine for about 5 minutes. Heat the mixture in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until the gelatine has dissolved (about 1 minute), and add to the rhubarb juice. Pour the remaining white wine into the juice to bring it up to 950ml.

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For leaf gelatine: add the wine as is to the juice to the required measurement. Soak gelatine leaves in a dish of cold water until softened. Put 2 ladles of rhubarb and wine syrup in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Squeeze out the gelatine leaves and whisk into the syrup. When they've dissolved, pour the contents of the pan back into the measuring cup. If you want to make sure everything is well blended, you can pour from the cup to the pan and back into the cup again.

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Taste; you may want some more sugar.

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Lightly oil a 4-cup jelly mould by dabbing a paper towel in some suitably flavourless oil and then rubbing it over the interior of the mould. Pour into the jelly mould. Place in the refrigerator to chill and set for about 6 hours or overnight.

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Serve with whipped cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.