Prickly Pear Extract
The base extract from a prickly pear that I use to turn into jelly and put into lemonade!
Servings: 5 32 oz jars
Ingredients
- 5.5 lbs prickly pear fruit
- water enough to cover fruit in pot
Instructions
- Clean your prickly pear off under running water. Don't touch them unless you've burned off the glochids.
- Put the cleaned off prickly pear into a pot and fill it with water until it barely covers the top of the fruit.
- Bring the pot to a boil.
- Let the fruit boil until the fruit has lost its color, slightly mashing the fruit. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes. The remaining water should be a deep reddish orange purple. I test this using a white cup.
- Remove any scum that comes to the top as you boil.
- Remove the fruit from the pot and throw away.
- If you want to maximize your extract amount you can squeeze the fruit to get every last ounce out. I use a potato masher to do this in a separate bowl and then drain the extra liquid back into the pot.
- After the fruit has been removed, strain your extract twice. Strain it the first time through a strainer to remove any seeds and remaining glochid.
- Strain a second time with a cotton cloth or a cheese cloth over your strainer. This should get all remaining impurities out of your extract.
- Put your extract in a refrigerator safe bowl or jar or can the extract and store it in your pantry for future use.
- This is the basic extract I used to make my jelly and lemonade recipes.