Dandelion Jelly

Finally, I am a believer! Round one of dandelion jelly ended like this:

What did I do, make a scoby?

After a morbidly awful first round failure, I rolled my shoulders back, put my chin up, and demanded that the kids help me forage a SECOND round of dandelion blossoms. "But, MOM!" Can you hear them? Geez Louise its as if I am forcing them into child labor. This time I was smarter and employed them to each bring a pair of scissors because this time once we picked the blossom, we would cut the bottom off right then and there, cutting our prep time down to nil! Winning!
This is the prep we had to endure the first round:

I wish I had a picture of them out in the field with their baskets. It was a very nice holiday weekend activity. We were also under the gun because SP had just left to go pick up a mower to knock down the field. As he returned he alerted us to another field, well an old logging job nearby, that was chock full of dandelions so we relinquished our hold on the home field and moved along to find new ground. We were very successful in our foraging.

This round I also used a new recipe that I found on SimplyCanning.com (thanks to a member of the Food In Jars community on Facebook). The recipe found Here shows detailed pictures of how to cut the dandelions. It is far easier to use a pair of scissors that to do it with your fingers alone.

Ingredients
4 cups dandelion flower petals
4 cups boiling water
4 cups dandelion tea (made from the steeped petals - see below)
7 cups sugar
4 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 pouches liquid pectin

Process

1. Place your dandelion petals in a heat safe container (with cover).  Cover petals with boiling water. Stir to combine. Cover (once it cools a bit) and steep overnight.

2. Drain the petals, reserving the tea.
3. Prepare your jars in a hot water canner. 
4. In a large pot (the pectin will make the jelly foam so you want room), combine the tea, sugar and lemon juice.
5. Bring mixture to a full boil.
6. Add the liquid pectin and stir constantly as it comes back to a boil.
7. Keep stirring and let it boil for one minute.
8. Remove from heat. Ladle the jelly into hot jars.
9. Affix lids and rings to the jars and place in hot water canner.
10. Process in canner for 10 minutes.

I was desperate to see if it jelled and fortunately had a bit left over that I didn't can that cooled first. By 10:00 last night, I declared the mission a success!

 
It really does taste just like honey!