I have used elderberry, cornelian cherry, and mahonia to make jelly,and they are excellent.

TIA

Into the Woods

My attempt at Sea Buckthorn (seaberry) jelly had good body but I did not like the flavor, even though I drink seaberry juice by the gallon! I did not care for a commercial variety (Russian) either, my wife ate it! We will be making seaberry ice cream soon with juice from a new crop.

When making jam/jelly, I use the commercial pectin rather than boiling the snot out of the fruit--perhaps you use crabapples or other natural source of pectin?

Thanks for your answer. About the seaberry jelly - what didn't you like about the flavor compared to the juice that you like so much - was it too sweet?

That's the problem I have with using commercial pectin. The recipes often call for 7 or 8 cups of sugar for 4 or 5 cups of juice and the sweetness overwhelms the fruit's flavor IMHO.

I make my own pectin extract from sour apples or the white pith just under the rind on citrus fruit. Or I blend a high pectin fruit with one that's lower in pectin. Cranberry with raspberry for example. Or crabapples cooked together with the other fruit.

I just gathered 3 quarts of cornelian cherries on Tuesday - took all of 30 minutes, if that. Cooked them and collected the juice, and will be making some tasty jelly. That's one that jells easily.

Thanks again.

Into the Woods

Seaberry juice has little or no natural pectin judging by the results of an alcohol test for clumping.

marklee--I have used Oregon Grape (the upright variety, but it shouldn't matter). More recently I've used the fruit (juice) of Berberis darwinii (Darwin barberry) and find it to have a flavor akin to black currant. Plus, if the fruit dries, shrivels and falls from the bush, it tastes like little sweet raisins.

I used a Japanese species of mahonia, Mahonia bealii to make a delicious jelly. Failures include sumac - too bitter, and cactus pear - unimpressive. While rose hip jam/ fruit butter is great, I find rose petal jelly innocuously sweet. The difficult thing with roses is finding enough unsprayed, untreated flowers.