The brambles are finally out. They provide a lot of treats and free nutrition for us during the winter and so we go foraging for them nearly every day when they are abundant. Blackberries (called Brambles where I live) are a superfood, and my favourite cooked berry. I made jam with some blackberries last year but it was a bit seedy for me and so this year I decided to make Blackberry Jelly. I trebled this recipe and came out with 5 jars.
Ingredients
1lb of blackberries
1/8 pint of water
1 medium cooking apple (if you do not have a cooking apple you can use the juice of a small lemon)
Sugar.
Method
- Add the washed blackberries, the apple cut into small chunks and the lemon if used into a pan and boil.
- Simmer the fruit until it is soft.
- Strain the liquid into a jug. You can use a jelly bag or a plastic sieve or muslin. Allow it to drip rather than force it through or else you will get a cloudy jelly (bad if competing in a show).
- Measure the juice and add 1lb of sugar for every pint of juice that you have.
- Simmer gently until the sugar has dissolved.
- Once dissolved, boil rapidly until setting point is reached. I test it on a saucer from the freezer but it needs to be 104.5C.
- Fill sterilised jars with hot jam and tighten the lid on top.
- In the UK we do not generally water bath jam.
I like this recipe as a lot of recipes make lots of jars of jelly, but I can use this one if I just want to make a couple of jars. We tried some yesterday, heated over sponge with custard, and it was delicious. If you want to switch this jam up and give it a more winter or autumnal feel, you can make it into spiced blackberry jelly by adding 1 tsp of mixed spice to each pint of liquid, and stir it in when you add the sugar.
Other recipes I make using blackberries are
Blackberry infused gin and vodka
