Dandelion Jelly: or; One More Reason Not to Chem Your Lawn

Here's the recipe, courtesy of The American Country Inn and Bed and Breakfast Cookbook, vol. 2, by Kitty and Lucian Maynard:

Dandelions
1 quart water

3 cups dandelion liquid
1 teaspoon lemon or orange extract
1 1 3/4 oz package Sure-Jell (fruit pectin)
4 1/2 c sugar

Here's my paraphrase of what you do:

Pick and wash dandelion blossoms. Crispina and I have been gathering them daily as they open, boiling and putting up the liquid in the freezer to use later for both jelly and wine. The recipe warns that boiling for more than three minutes will turn the liquid green;  so far mine has been a lovely pale gold. When they're boiled, we strain out and compost the blossoms, pour the liquid into freezer containers, and we're done for the day.

When you have three cups of liquid, you boil that with the lemon or orange extract and the package of Sure-Jell, which comes with additional handy jelly-making directions, good for the neophyte like me. Add the sugar and boil for three minutes, stirring constantly. After three minutes, remove the mixture from the heat and decant into jars. Again, the Sure-Jell package has very useful canning instructions if you don't already know how to do it.

I had more liquid than jars, as it turned out, so I poured some into a bowl to set and use right away. 

 

The inn proprietor who contributed this recipe notes that dandelion jelly tastes like honey. I've got bread in the oven right now -- 3 cups wheat flour, one cup almond flour, two cups quick oats, oil, a  glob of molasses, water, and 2 packs active dry yeast -- so we'll see how it all turns out.