I am very pleased with how the mustard turned out. I ended up combining a few different recipes to make one that I thought would appeal to me best. I don't know why so many recipes call for cayenne in ordinary yellow mustard. I didn't use it and mine has enough kick without it. It's probably around the range of French's yellow mustard, not super spicy, but definitely a bit of heat. I love French's mustard for flavor, but the yellow # 5 I can do without.

I have always been a pretty loyal French's mustard girl, but I think this actually tastes just as good, maybe even a little better. It seems mild at first, but then it gives a little kick.



Here's the recipe I ended up concocting:

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup of mustard powder (I used yellow, but brown is fine if you want brown mustard, I wanted yellow)
2 tsp kosher sea salt (ordinary salt is fine)
1 tsp flour (I just used white all purpose)
1 tsp turmeric (makes it more yellow and gives a little kick)
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp onion powder

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup water
3/4 cup white vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix together all of the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Add to sauce pan. Mix water and vinegar. Add to sauce pan. Stir until combined and you can see no lumps. If there are any lumps squash them against the side of the pan until the powder comes free and mix it in.

Turn on heat and bring it to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes while stirring. I stirred it pretty constantly because otherwise it would try to splatter out of the pan. I kept it on a low boil because a high boil was too messy.

Now most of the recipes I saw said to put it in a blender at this point to make it smoother, but it looked plenty smooth to me and I didn't want to cool the mustard down since I was going to be canning it and I didn't want to lose part of it to the sides of the blender container either. If I had a handheld blender I might have done it right there on the stove, but like I said, it didn't seem grainy at all so I skipped that step.

At this point I turned off the heat and I stirred in the lemon juice until it was absorbed. I then poured it into my hot, sterilized half-pint jars, leaving one inch of head space, that is one inch from the top of the jar. The mustard will expand during processing so don't overfill. I then thumped the mustard down into the jars to get rid of any air pockets. I put on my lids and rings and put the jars into my boiling water bath, then I processed for 15 minutes.

I actually had enough for 2 half-pint jars with a little less than a quarter cup left over so I put the extra into a clean jar and put it into the fridge. The jars sealed up just fine, pinging within minutes of taking them out.

I bought the organic mustard powder in bulk from the food co-op. Everything else I had on hand (and was also organic, except the vinegar). A cup of mustard powder cost me $2.00. I can estimate that the rest of the ingredients might have been .50 worth, so about 20 ounces of mustard with no additives for $2.50. About what I'd pay for regular storebought mustard, and less than I'd pay for organic storebought mustard. I'm considering this organic because for it to qualify as an organic processed food in the industry, 80% of it must come from organic sources and this does.

I'll make this again later this summer, but right now I've got some raspberry canes calling my name. I think jam is in my near future.