Red Bud Trees and Red Bud Jelly

 There is nothing better than free food. Right? Well there is free food all over the world you just have to look for it and learn all about it. I recently learned that the flowers from a Red Bud tree make a very tasty jelly so I decided to try it. And it came out great. The seed pods are edible to. You can use them in place of snow peas in recipes as long as you pick them before the seeds start to grow. Since the Red Bud tree is a member of the pea family the pods taste close to the snow peas. I will have to wait on the pods but not the jelly.

My Red Bud trees are in full bloom right now. I love looking at the blooms and they have a lovey smell. They are such a pretty pink as you can see from the close up.

The two  pictures above were taken two days before the blooms fully opened. When they did I picked 8 cups of blooms and washed them real well.

I then packed 4 cups of blooms in each of two quart mason jars and added 1 quart of hot water over the blooms in each jars.

After the water had cooled I set the jars in the refrigerator to chill and steep for 24 hours. The next day I strained the red bud infusion through a coffee filter. That left about 3 cups of the strained infusion in each jar. It's hard to tell because of condensation on the jar but the color is a light purple color.

I added enough water to make 4 cups of the infusion and place it in a large pot and brought it to a rolling boil. I then added one package of Sure Jel and one tablespoon of lemon juice to the pot and brought it back to a rolling boil that I could not stir down. 

I let it boil for one minute then I added 5 cups of sugar and one tablespoon butter and brought it back to a rolling boil that I could not stir down. I let it boil for one minute and then turned off the burner.

After it sit for a minute to let the bubbles settle down it looked like this.

I filled the jars to the half inch line. Wipe the rims and applied the two piece caps. I then place the jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  I got 7-8 oz jars and 1-4 oz jar out of this recipe.

                                      

The jelly came out a real pretty pink rose color and it is so yummy! I will be making more of this every year from now on.