Since I was a child, I have been fascinated with candy making, but the idea has remained in the realm of chocolate truffle and sugar plum day dreams. As I embark on my exploration of native and wild harvested flavors, it seemed time to pull my daydreams into reality, and to make real thoughts of bee balm mint truffles, hickory caramels, and sand plum creams.
With the success of the dark-chocolate and juniper panna cotta, I began thinking about other candies and confections into which I could incorporate the citrus, evergreen flavors of juniper "berries". Since I have always loved chocolate covered jellies, I decided this would be my first attempt.
Using the jelly candy recipe from the Joy of Cooking, I made a black-berry, orange, and juniper berry jelly. To impart the juniper flavors, I crushed up about 2 tablespoons of juniper berries, which simmered in the orange juice and blackberries. The juniper berries were strained out along with the blackberry seeds.
The jelly set over night and the next morning, I started my day by cutting the jelly into squares and rectangles, consciously choosing to cut different sizes for my experiment. I dipped half in chocolate, and the other half were rolled in juniper sugar.
The jellies turned out a beautiful color and texture, but needed more flavor. I was worried about too strong of a juniper flavor, so erred on the side of not enough. The jelly is delicious, it just don't taste of juniper. The chocolate dipped jellies taste mainly of chocolate, never a bad result in my book. The juniper-sugar rolled jellies do have that juniper flavor, which is quite lovely.
I am going to make juniper berry extract and see if I can impart more flavor that way as well.
