When I was in Honduras and had made a side trip to Guatemala, I found a coffee jelly/jam that I eventually used for a new recipe I developed. Now that I'm back in the States, I can't get that jelly any more, so I have been looking into making some myself.
After looking at the ingredients of the jelly I had used originally, I tried THIS recipe for coffee jelly. Admittedly, since I didn't want to be to wasteful if it didn't turn out, I scaled the recipe to one quarter and made a test batch as a refrigerator jelly (since I don't have full canning equipment).
The result was delicious, but even though it thickened SOMEwhat, it never did set completely, even after two weeks in the fridge.
Here, then, are my questions:
- Do any of you have a tried-and-true recipe for coffee jelly?
- Should the recipe at the above link work?
- Was it my making only 1/4 of the recipe that caused it to fail?
- If the recipe, itself, is just that finicky, how could I tweak the ratios (more/less pectin? more/less sugar? some combination of adjustments?) to make it more reliable?
- The ingredients of the original, purchased jelly also had lemon juice. The above recipe does not. Could a little lemon juice help? If so, how much?
- When jelly doesn't set, is there any way to rescue it by re-cooking it with more pectin and/or sugar?
Thanks!