RECIPE: PEONY Flower Jelly/Syrup!!

O.M.G.  What a gorgeous color!  I made it ONLY for the color, thinking I would not like the flavor, but it tastes good, too!   

Our peonies are pushing their heads out of the ground now, and I'm planning to make this again this year, so I'm posting it now as a reminder.

I used this recipe as a guide, but I made a lot of changes to create and preserve the color.  If you don't care about the color, just follow her recipe which is much easier.  I also only made a half recipe because we don't eat many sweet things.

PEONY Flower Jelly/Syrup

Makes about 2.5 cups

Here's a photo of the peonies in our garden, raised without chemicals.  We have two dark pink, two light pink, and one magenta.  

the 5 peony bushes in our garden, in full bloom

My goal was to make a magenta-color jelly that was obviously NOT raspberry or strawberry.  I also didn't want a lavender/violet color that might be confused with violet jelly.  So...I started with 3 dark pink blossoms, from the bushes at the far left side of the photo above, harvested right before they were fully open.  The pot I'm using is a Le Creuset with a white interior so I can see the color of the liquid:

When I removed the petals, they seemed to be much lighter than I wanted, but I proceeded anyway to see what color they produced.  When I poured 2 cups of boiling water over them, they turned purple!  I let them steep for 20 minutes.

Here's what the water looked like when I removed the petals - it was lighter than I wanted.

3 peony blossoms, in boiling water, and drained

So...I harvested one of our very dark blossoms (I will see if I can find the cultivars we have), added the petals to the water, brought it quickly to a boil, and let it steep for 20 minutes.  

The water was darker now (see the middle image in the photo below), but not quite what I was after, so I harvested another very dark blossom.   After adding the petals to the water, bringing it quickly to a boil, letting it steep for 20 minutes and then removing the petals, the liquid was finally the color I was after!  

1 dark peony was better, but a 2nd one was perfect!

I poured the liquid into a measuring cup - I now had just shy of 2 cups of gorgeous magenta water!  I poured it back into my pot and added 2 cups of caster sugar (yes, conventional white sugar because I didn't want to muddy the color!).  

The original recipe now instructs you to add lemon juice, but I was afraid it would change the color so I removed 1 teaspoon to a small custard cup and added a few drops of lemon juice.  Sure enough, the lemon juice removed all the blue tones in the color and it looked to me like raspberry/strawberry. I did NOT add the lemon juice. 

My next 'problem' was that I don't stock pectin, because I prefer not to use it, so I had no way of getting my jelly to gel!  Knowing there is pectin in lemon seeds, I gathered up the pits from the lemon I had just juiced and added them to the pot.  If it didn't gel enough, I would settle for syrup instead of jelly.  

In the photo below, on the left, you can see the color of the two varieties of peony petals after boiling - it's amazing how different they are.  On the right is the syrup ready to be reduced:

Two different varieties of peony petals, and syrup ready to be reduced.

I brought the liquid to a boil, and let it simmer until it was syrupy.  I didn't want to cook it too long, for fear the color would change, so I killed the heat as soon as it was thick enough to be useful, and poured it into canning jars.  There was a little bit left over so I poured that into a custard cup.  When it was cool enough, I tasted it and it was delicious!   I thought I wouldn't like the floral taste but it was really nice!

I ended up with 2.5 cups of syrup which I poured into one 1/2-pint jar and three 1/2-cup jars.  The gorgeous color isn't as apparent in the jars:

Peony syrup in jars

Once the jars were cool, I stored them in the fridge.  I haven't decided how to use them yet...

2.5 cups of peony syrup in jars

Here, finally, is the recipe I will use if I ever make this again:

INGREDIENTS

• 3 dark pink peonies and 2 magenta peonies
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups white sugar
• 30 lemon pits, or 1/2 box powdered pectin (I don't know if pectin will change the color!) 

DIRECTIONS

Harvest the freshest, cleanest peonies from your garden, almost but not fully open.  Holding the stem, gently pull the petals off and discard the stamens and any petals with green at the base.  You need about 4-6 cups of petals.  

Put the petals in a medium saucepan and cover them with boiling water.  Let them steep for 15-20 minutes.  Hopefully, the water will be the color you want.  If it's too light, you can add another blossom or two.  If it's too dark, you can try adding more water.   

Place a strainer over a large measuring pitcher and strain out the petals. Press on them HARD to get as much color out of them as possible!

Take note of how much water is in the measuring pitcher and pour the liquid back into the saucepan. 

If you're using powdered pectin, follow the instructions on the package.  Apparently, you add the pectin first, let it dissolve, and then add the sugar.  You can reduce the sugar to as little as 1/2 cup.  The original instructions say that the lemon juice helps the mixture set properly.  I don't know if it will set if  you don't add the lemon.

If you aren't using commercial pectin, add an equal amount of sugar, the lemon pits, and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and continue to boil until it's the consistency you want. 

Pour the syrup into jars, cool, and store in the fridge.

NOTE: I gave one of the small jars to a friend, and after a year in her fridge a gorgeous crystal formed!  Wouldn't that be amazing to drop into a cup of tea?

Peony syrup crystal!