Lemon and Honey Jelly Bundt

Taking pictures in a dark, November kitchen is hard. Don't hate on my bundt!

There are several reasons why you need to make this jelly bundt. Because I am literally typing as I think them up, I'm going to use everyone's favourite, the bullet point, as a way of listing them rather numbering them, mainly because I don't yet know how many I'll come up with (I know - the suspense! Hold on, readers!).

• On the other side of the Atlantic (or Pacific, depending on where you are), it is National Bundt Day today. We have celebrated this before on Delicious Delicious Delicious.
• It is vegan, which I always think is nice. Nothing had to die for us to enjoy it.
  
• It smells and tastes like lemon jelly beans. That's a really good reason by the way.

Last year, Mary the Food Librarian posted a different bundt recipe every day for thirty days in the run-up to National Bundt Day. Some would call her crazy to attempt such a feat, but Mary did it and this year she's been doing it again. If you do your maths correctly, you'll see that that means she's made 60 different bundts over the last year or so. This is the reason I love her blog: she loves cake even more than I do.


Last year, Mary shocked the hell out of me by making a jelly bundt, so this year I am following her example. It makes sense; I didn't have time to bake last night, so decided to channel my inner Bompas & Parr and go gelatinous. What can I say, it has been a triumph.

I used some agar crystals for this which, unbeknownst to me, were yellow coloured. If you get plain ones, or use animal gelatine, your jelly will have the beautiful, pale yellow honey tones that I wanted for mine. For today though, we're putting the sexy back into artificial food colouring.

I'm not promising anything, because I have a habit of making promises I can't keep (promising, for example, not to open the first bag of pfeffernüsse we bought from Wally's Deli this year until Mr. Other P came home), but there may well be another bundt from me this week.


Happy Bundt Day!

Lemon and Honey Jelly Bundt

You will need:

agar jelly crystals (see recipe)
2 lemons
sugar
honey
water

1. First, measure the capacity of your bundt tin. Mine was 1 litre. Then, buy sufficient agar crystals to make a double strength solution in a quantity that will fit your tin. My crystals made 1 litre per packet, so I used 2 packets. Make sense? You want a strong jelly that will be easily unmoulded, hence the doubling up.
2. Zest and squeeze the lemons; put the juice and zest into a pan with enough water to make 1 litre of liquid, 125g honey and 250g sugar (you want sugar equal to a quarter of the liquid, and half that amount of honey). Heat gently.
   
3. When the sugar has dissolved, add the agar. Bring to the boil and then pout into your oiled bundt tin. By 'oiled', I mean rubbed out with a little oil soaked kitchen towel.
4. Chill until set. The jelly will be easier to unmould if you let the tin sit in a basin of hot water for 30 seconds or so.
5. Let joy be unconfined.