Okay, first thing’s first. When I found this recipe for “watermelon jelly,” I was excited.
“Oh, I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” I thought to myself, “I’ve never made jelly and I’ve definitely never had watermelon jelly, so this will be great!”
But then, about half way through the process of making this jelly, I realized that it wasn’t the kind of jelly that you might spread on a PBJ sandwich or a toasted bagel. Turns out, the “jelly” I was making was actually another type of gelatin. One that starts with “jell” and ends with an “O”. I can’t say the brand name here, and neither could the person who posted this recipe.
And that’s how I can to make watermelon jelly that’s not actually jelly, but it’s still pretty good. Check out the process below to see how I made it, and check out the recipe here to make your own.
The ingredients in this jelly are pretty simple: just watermelon (which you’ll turn into 3 cups of juice), unflavored gelatin, lemon juice and sugar. That’s it!
To make the three cups of watermelon juice that will serve as the base of the jelly, you’ll need to carve your watermelon into chunks. Yes, I bought a watermelon with seeds and, no, I didn’t mean to. If you do the same, don’t worry…the seeds will be ground up in your food processor (or blender), but they’ll be filtered out later.
The next step, according to the original recipe, is to puree your watermelon chunks a food processor before filtering the blended result through a fine sieve like the one above. I didn’t have a food processor, so I used my blender, and it worked just as well. (TIP: Your sieve will probably get clogged up with watermelon pulp, so you’ll need to rinse it off in the sink a few times while you make your three cups of juice.)
After you’ve got your juice, you’ll add three packets of unflavored gelatin to one cup of the juice and place the other two cups of juice in a sauce pan on the stove with some sugar. After the sugar has melted, stir in the lemon juice and the watermelon juice with the gelatin in it, and then pour the entire mixture into a square pan. Place the pan in the fridge for about six hours to allow the gelatin to work its magic.
The next morning (actually this morning), my watermelon “jelly” was complete! It’s definitely more of a gelatin dessert (where’s the whipped cream?), but I still might spread some of this jelly on a slice of toast.
For more recipes using watermelon, check out the “Recipes” section of the National Watermelon Promotion Board website.
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