Cheese, Pineapple and Cucumber Salad Mould

Ingredients:
1 Green Jelly (Lime or Greengage)
20ml powdered Gelatin
250ml boiling water
125ml cold water
1 Large English cucumber or 2 small cucumbers, grated
1 small onion, chopped
180-200ml grated Cheddar cheese
125ml chopped pineapple
50ml vinegar
30ml mayonnaise

Method:
Melt your jelly in the boiling water with the extra gelatin. Add cold water; stir and allow to cool.
Place your cucumber and onion in a sieve and allow the moisture from them to drain away as much as possible.
When the jelly mixture has cooled, add the cheese, pineapple, vinegar, mayonnaise, cucumber and onion.
Mix and pour into a wet mould and place in the refrigerator to set.
Unmould and decorate as you like.

Mint Jelly

This summer I have a mountain of mint in my garden, taking over about a quarter of the space I have! I planted a sprig left from a supermarket pot a couple of years ago and it has thrived so that it's now about 100 times the size it was to start with. It is luscious and fragrant and just begging me to use it, so I made it into a jelly that I can store and use all year through.

Mint jelly is just to die for if spread on lamb chops before grilling them. The flavour permeates the meat, tenderising it as it cooks so the result is not just flavoursome, but succulent and tender at the same time.

When making mint jelly, use tart apples like Granny Smiths or Bramleys. The tarter the apple, the more pectin it has. If you are using home picked apples, picking early in the season is best, and smaller apples will have proportionately more pectin as well. Don’t peel or core the apples as most of the pectin is found in the core, and almost all the rest is found in the peel.

Ingredients:
1.8-2 kg tart apples, unpeeled, chopped into big pieces, including the cores.
375-400ml fresh mint leaves, chopped and lightly packed.
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
500ml water
500ml white wine vinegar
875-1000ml sugar ( about 220ml for each 250ml of juice).

Method:
Combine the apple pieces with lemon zest, lemon juice, water and mint in a large pan. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes, or until the apples are soft. Add the vinegar and return to the boil. Simmer covered for another 5 minutes. Use a potato masher to mash the apple pieces to the consistency of thin apple sauce.

Spoon the apple flesh into a clean tea towel in a colander or large strainer over a large bowl. Leave to strain for several hours. Most cooks say not to squeeze, but I do squeeze very carefully to get the last of the juice out of the apple mash without getting any of the pulp in the syrup. Note, if your apple mash is too thick you can add about 100-125ml more water to it. You should have between 1000-1250ml of resulting juice.

Measure the juice, then pour into a large pot. Add the sugar ( about 220ml for each 250ml of juice) and heat gently, stirring to make sure the sugar dissolves and does not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Bring to the boil and continue to boil for about 10-15 minutes, using a metal spoon to skim off the surface scum. Continue to boil until a jam thermometer shows that the temperature has reached 105°C or 220-222°F, not quite at the thread stage. Additional time needed for cooking can be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or longer, depending on the amount of water, sugar, and apple pectin in the mix.

If you don’t have a jam thermometer, test by putting a small amount of jelly (half a teaspoon) on a chilled plate (chill the plate in the freezer in preparation for testing). Allow the jelly to cool a few seconds, then push it with your fingertip. If it wrinkles, it’s ready.

Pour the jelly into sterilised jars almost to the top of the jar and seal. This makes about 8 x 100ml jars.

Strawberry Yogullies

Yogullies are what I call jellies that have been made with yoghurt. These jellies are wonderful to finish off a summer evening meal or for the kids when out of school for the summer break. What a wonderful way to get them to have at least one of their '5 a day'. Make them a day in advance so they have plenty of time to set.

Ingredients:
6 sheets of gelatine
600ml strawberry and apple juice
250g strawberries
15ml icing sugar
150g Greek yoghurt

Method:
Soak the gelatine in 60ml of cold water for 10 minutes. Heat 150ml of the strawberry and apple juice in a small pan. When hot, remove from the heat and add the gelatine, squeezing out the excess water from the gelatinous mass. Stir until all the gelatine has dissolved. Add the remaining juice and stir well.

Pour 200ml of the juice into a bowl and leave to set in the fridge. Divide the rest of the mixture between 6 small glasses and leave to chill in the fridge for about an hour and a half until almost set.

Keeping 3 small strawberries intact, hull the remaining fruit. Place the hulled fruit in a mini-blender with the icing sugar and most of the yoghurt, reserving about 6 teaspoonfuls for garnish. Pulse until the strawberries are roughly chopped. Stir this yoghurt mixture into the bowl of set jelly and divide between the glasses. Leave to set for a further half an hour.

Serve topped with the reserved yoghurt and half a strawberry each.

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.