From Mes Confitures by Christine Ferber.

Coming off the previous jam attempt (rhubarb, orange and apple) which was a little too sweet, I was still looking for a jam or jelly that might be on the tart side. I thought for sure, with both rhubarb and grapefruit as ingredients, this jelly was it.

I have a lot to learn.

The recipe starts off by cooking rhubarb and apples until soft, then straining the juice. The next day, this juice is cooked with sugar and grapefruit sections until set. My first problem was with the apples. Ferber doesn’t specify what kind of apples to use. Still stuck on my tarter-is-better mode, I used Granny Smith apples. My second problem was with the grapefruit. Ferber tells you to peel the grapefruit and section it, making sure to collect the juice. This confused me. I figured if I peeled the grapefruit, there wouldn’t be any juice to collect and the membranes on the grapefruit sections would be pretty tough to eat. So, I supremed the grapefruit instead.

On the second day, as I started to cook the juice with the grapefruit sections, I was feeling optimistic. Things quickly went downhill. The first thing you do is cook part of the juice, the grapefruit juice and the sugar until it reaches 230 degrees (Farenheit). Then you add the rest of the juice and the grapefruit sections and boil until set. Almost immediately, the grapefruit sections disintegrated. I continued to boil and boil. As I tested the set and tasted the jelly, it started to get an almost caramelly taste from cooking so long. Wanting to avoid this, I went ahead and jarred the jelly before it was completely set. Bad move. I now have rhubarb and grapefruit syrup.

And the taste? Well, it is still too sweet by itself, but the jelly has a sweet/tart taste that went well drizzled over toast. I can taste the carmelized sugar, but Bryan didn’t seem to mind it. In fact, he requested pancakes so he could use this jelly as a syrup.