Mulled Wine and Blood Orange Jelly Hearts

Hello,

Last Christmas Eve I made goose liver with mulled wine jelly as pre-course meal. It turned out really well, guests were asking for extra jelly. A few weeks later I came across my silicone chocolate molds and that rang a bell. Why not make heart - shaped mulled wine jelly treats for Valentines?

It is very simple and quick to make, ready within approximately an hour, so nothing stops you to come up with it on Friday if you wish.

As you can see in the photos, I made a layered treat. As I put some orange juice in the mulled wine jelly it was straightforward to go for orange jelly as the second layer. I bought these beautiful blood oranges at the market, but you may also use traditional oranges

Note:

Make sure that you measure the quantities. This is important because of the gelling agent we are using: agar agar. Agar agar is made of a sea weed and the good thing about it is that it has no taste at all. You must have a precise scale though, as a very small quantity is enough. The general guideline is 100 ml liquid to 1 g agar agar, but more acidic liquids may require a little more of it (100 ml to 1.3 g ratio).

Mulled wine jelly:

• 250 ml red wine (I used Cabernet sauvignon)
• 100 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
• zest of 1 orange
• 100 g sugar
• 1 star anise
• 8-10 cloves
• 6-8 black peppers
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 g agar agar

Blood orange jelly:

• 200 ml blood orange juice (I used 4 small oranges)
• 50 g vanilla sugar
• zest of 1 orange
• 2.5 g agar agar

Tools:

• small saucepans
• scale
• wooden spoon
• citrus zester and juicer
• pitcher with spout
• silicone mold

1.Remove the zest of the orange, squeeze out the juice.

2. Put the wine, 100 ml of the orange juice and all the spices into a small saucepan, bring it to boil.

3. Set it aside and cover with a plate. Let it sit for 15 minutes for the liquid to get infused with the spices.

4. Strain the liquid, add the agar agar, bring it to boil, simmer for 4 minutes in order to activate agar agar.

5. Using a pitcher with spout, pour the liquid into the mold about half-way up to leave space for the orange jelly. Put it in a cold place to set. (Here it's quite cold now, daytime temperature is around zero C, therefore I put it on the balcony. It sets amazingly fast.)

Start this phase only when the mulled wine jelly part has set.

1. Juice the oranges.

2. Pour the orange juice, vanilla sugar, orange zest and the agar agar into a saucepan, bring it to boil, simmer for 4 minutes.

3. Transfer the liquid into a smaller pitcher with spout. Wait 2 minutes (I wanted to get clear layers and I was afraid that the hot orange juice would eventually mix with the blood orange, therefore I decided to wait a little, but not too long as we do want the layers to stick together).

4. Pour the orange juice over the set mulled wine.

5. Let it set in a cool place.

Remove from the mold. Ta-dah!