Florida Cranberry-Apple Jello

We were introduced to Roselle Hibiscus aka Florida Cranberry many years ago. Every year since then we grow three to six bushes and they grow a good six feet tall and six feet wide. Once they are established they are really hard to kill—even if a fierce wind comes along and breaks the branches, for the broken branches just keep on growing. Come September the branches begin to be covered with pink flowers that resemble an okra flower—because they are in the same family! Then in October those flowers begin to grow BIG calyces. They are dark red and have a sweet and sour taste—they remind of us SweeTarts.

Before the first frost arrives we would spend hours harvesting all the calyces. Depending on the amount of time we had we would either stand at the bushes and cut off each calyx from the stem, or if we were trying to get the crop in before dark and the weather turned bitter cold—then we would just cut off all the branches and then sit on the porch cutting off the calyces. Once we had all the calyces removed from the branches, then we would spend even more hours removing the dark red calyces from the seed pods. We girls would make a mental note to add peeling calyces to the list of one more thing not to do with your hands the night before your wedding. Our hands would be stained red, unless we opted to wear some vinyl gloves. We would fill the dehydrator trays full with the pieces of the roselle calyx, and then once they were dry we would store them in glass jars in the herb closet.

We knew that you could make a delicious tea with it—the perfect Christmas punch! The idea was to have lots and lots of red hibiscus punch all winter. I will not tell you how many gallon jars of roselle are in that closet today—I will just say that dreams don’t always come true. One year we froze them fresh in hopes of making cranberry sauce. We attempted to make mock cranberry sauce with it—but it wasn’t our favorite. This year I wanted to do something different with the Roselle. I wanted to do something that tasted really good. I wanted to find a way of storing the Roselle calyces that would encourage us to use them. I wanted to make jello with them—for I prefer cranberry jelly over cranberry sauce.

So I gathered a pound of roselle calyces and put the whole calyx in the pot—seeds pods and all. Then I covered them with water, added some cinnamon and allspice and brought them to a boil.

I boiled them for about 30 minutes, and then I strained them out. I now had a beautiful crimson red tea.

I grabbed a cup of apple juice and dissolved some gelatin . . .

. . . and then I added honey to it.

I cut up some apples and chopped up some walnuts, and added everything to my cranberry tea.

I then poured the mixture into a shallow dish and set it in the fridge for a few hours—and out came the prettiest red jello that was housing the best of fall flavors.

We loved it so much that we decided this year to make tea with all of our roselle calyces and then we added the apple juice to it and canned it up so that all year we can open a jar and either have a cup of tea or make some jello.

Since the jello tasted so scrumptious I just couldn’t keep the recipe to myself—especially since I couldn’t find a recipe for Florida Cranberry Jello anywhere on the internet. If I may say so myself, I do believe that Florida Cranberry-Apple Jello would be the perfect substitute for cranberry sauce at your next Thanksgiving Dinner.

Florida Cranberry-Apple Jello

  • First you must make a tea:

    • 1 pound Roselle Calyx with or without seedpods

    • 1 cinnamon stick

    • 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

    • Cover with water (5 to 6 cups)

    • Bring to a boil, and boil for 30 minutes

    • Strain

  • To make the Jello:

    • 1 cup apple juice

    • 8 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (4 envelopes)

    • 1/2 cup honey

    • 3 cups roselle tea

    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

    • 2 chopped apples

    • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

    • 1/8 teaspoon salt

In a small saucepan stir gelatin into apple juice with a wire whisk; let stand for 5 minutes. Then place saucepan over medium heat, bring to a boil, stirring constantly with wire whisk until it boils.

Remove from heat and stir in honey.

Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl combine the roselle tea, lemon juice, apples, walnuts and salt.

Stir the gelatin-honey mixture into the tea mixture and pour into shallow casserole dish (8 x 8).

Refrigerate until the jello is set.

Tiare Street