Strawberry milk jelly
Real strawberries, not a packet cube
plus 4 hours setting
Doubles into four glasses in the same pan, though the strawberries need blending and sieving in two batches if your blender is small. Keeps two days in the fridge, covered.
Packet jelly is a fine thing, but it has never tasted much of the fruit printed on the box. This one does, because the fruit is the actual starting point rather than a flavouring added afterwards. Strawberries blended and pushed through a sieve give a purée with real colour and real flavour and, crucially, none of their seeds, which is the one part of a strawberry this diet cannot manage. Warmed into sweetened milk and set with gelatine rather than the usual water, it sets into something softer and creamier than a shop jelly, closer to a set milkshake than the wobbling cubes from childhood. Squeeze the gelatine leaves properly after their soak, since the water clinging to them is what stops a jelly setting firm.
Ingredients
Contains: Milk
- 250 gstrawberries, hulled, blended and pushed through a fine sieve, seeds discarded
- 4 leafleaf gelatine, about 7 g, platinum grade, soaked in cold water until floppy
- 50 gcaster sugar
- 250 mlwhole milk
- 60 mldouble cream, to serve
Method
Hull the strawberries, blend until smooth, then push the purée through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing well with the back of a spoon and discarding the seeds left behind. You should end up with about 200 ml of purée.
Soak the gelatine leaves in a small bowl of cold water for 5 minutes, until completely floppy.
Put the milk and sugar in a small pan and warm gently, stirring, until steaming and the sugar has dissolved, without letting it boil.
Take the pan off the heat. Lift the gelatine out of the water, squeeze it firmly between your hands, and stir it into the warm milk until it has completely dissolved, with no strand left on the spoon.
Stir the strawberry purée into the warm milk until fully combined and the whole mixture turns a bright, even pink.
Pour into two glasses. Cool at room temperature for 15 minutes, then chill for at least 4 hours, or overnight, until fully set with a gentle wobble when you nudge the glass.
Serve cold with a spoonful of cream poured over the top of each.
Watch-points
- Push the blended strawberries hard through a fine sieve and discard the seeds left in the mesh. None of them should make it into the jelly.
- Squeeze the gelatine leaves properly after their soak before they go into the warm milk. Water left clinging to them thins the set.
- Keep the glasses covered in the fridge and eat them within two days, or the next day if you are having chemotherapy.
Some hospitals leave all berries off the list because of their seeds; the leaflet this book follows allows a strawberry purée pushed completely smooth through a sieve, since what remains is smooth juice rather than whole fruit. Leave it out if you have been told to.
Make it more nourishing
- Use all cream in place of the milk, 250 ml in total, for a much richer set in the same volume.
- Whisk 2 tablespoons of skimmed milk powder into the milk before it heats, for about 3 g more protein in each glass.
- Pour a full 100 ml of cream over the top instead of 60 ml, for extra calories with almost no extra effort.
Swaps
- Instead of strawberries, use raspberries, sieved the same way
- a sharper flavour and a slightly deeper pink
- Instead of whole milk, use a mix of milk and single cream
- a richer set without changing the method