Proven over the years recipe, without lyrical reasoning. Serve dandelion jam well with hot pancakes. In hot summer weather, diluted jam in the water perfectly quenches thirst. It is very rich in vitamins and minerals.
Will need
- 250-300 pcs. yellow hats of dandelion.
- 1.5 liters of water.
- 1-2 medium lemons.
- 1.5 kg of granulated sugar.
Making Dandelion Jam
Collect 250-300 pieces of large dandelion flowers (only yellow "fat" caps) in an ecologically clean place in dry sunny weather at noon - at this time the flowers contain the maximum amount of pollen and nectar.
Rinse the collected flowers carefully in water - all insects will crawl out of them. Do not fuss heavily on dandelions, so as not to wash away all the pollen from them.
Then pour clean dandelions with 1.5 liters of boiling water, cover with a lid and let it brew for a day.
Boil the resulting infusion for 5 minutes, cool, squeeze the flowers and strain the liquid through frequent gauze, discard the flowers.
Add 2 well-washed lemons to the brewed liquid. They can be rubbed into a coarse grater with zest, or cut into cubes, or add only the juice squeezed out of them.
Important: Some lemon varieties may be bitter. If you add too much lemon with zest, the jam may be more tart and even bitter. Therefore, before adding citrus fruit to jam, you need to taste it.
Warm dandelion infusion with lemon on a plate. Gradually add sugar into it and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until visibly thickened for about 40 minutes.
Important: Freshly prepared dandelion jam will not be very thick. It will flow from the spoon as a slightly thick liquid of light golden or amber color. Jam can acquire a denser consistency if boiled for a long time. But from this it will get a darker shade.
Warm golden syrup pour into jars and roll up the lids.
Note: The color of jam cooked according to this recipe may vary in different years: from light golden to rich amber. This is due to the conditions in which dandelions grew. If the weather was rainy and cool, then the flowers will be weak, small, the pollen content in them will be much less. Accordingly, dandelion jam will be lighter and less saturated in color.
Keep the jam in a cool place.