Our jelly making process
We make our small batch jelly here on Maui. It is a family affair. Grandma “mormor” picks our fresh fruit daily during harvest season to keep her active at the young age of 89. The dog, cats and chickens keep an eye on her while she is out collecting lilikoi and watching the bees and butterflies that pollinate our organic lilikoi vines.
2 - 3 times a month we take the fresh lilikoi fruit to our commercial kitchen and “juice” them to create our fresh puree’, then our jelly. After our puree’ is ready it’s jelly making time. Our extra low sugar jelly has 4 simple ingredients; lilikoi puree, sugar, pectin and calcium water. We need to add calcuim water to our jelly because we use so little sugar in it. Pectin is what makes the lilikoi puree set up and become thick or jelly. Pectin is normally activated by sugar, however, because we use such small amounts of sugar the calcium water is needed to help the pectin thicken the lilikoi puree. 4 simple ingredients with lots of yummy flavor.
Because we use very little sugar in our jelly, it is very flavorful and a little tart. It is not an overly sweet jelly but one that has lots of fresh lilikoi puree’ and little else. Using small amounts of sugar allows the flavor of the lilikoi to come through without the unneeded sugar.
Once the jelly is canned it will last for 6 - 12 months on a shelf as long as it stays cool and sealed. I think the jelly is best if used within 6 months to have the best flavors. Sometimes you will see after several months a slight darkening of the jelly, this is normal and safe. There are no stabilizers in the jelly so the lilikoi can discolor slightly. Once you open the jar the jelly must be refrigerated, it will last for several months in the refrigerator. We see coloring relatively quickly in our fridge at home. It will become less thick the longer you leave it in the fridge due to no stabilizers or artificial items in the jelly, just give it a quick stir and enjoy it.
Maui Vanilla Farm’s Lilikoi Jelly pairs well with many things. A few of our favorites are; goat cheese and crackers, waffles, plain greek yogurt with granola and jelly mixed in, and finally roast pork on a bed of potatoes.
