Rich and i have been gathering Blackberries when we walk the dogs in the morning, so far over 3 kgs have been collected with half turned into jam!
The blackberry jam recipe i used was found on the internet but as my mum and dad will testify i have given up measuring a lot of my recipes and favour the chuck it in and chance it approach as its much more fun and quicker.
However i have been making a fair bit of jam recently, jam and soup im actually quite good at it seems, despite being rather slap dash.
Anyway, jam is usually a 50/50 slip fruit to sugar, i have eased off the sugar and make it more like 60/40 so for 2.4kgs of blackberries i was looking for around 2kgs of sugar... well i found about 1.8kgs of sugar in the wardrobe and said to my able small child assistant, 'meh that'll do. '
Oh and i found a slightly wrinkly looking lemon in the fridge so i squished the juice of that in too.
I heated it all up in a big pot, (i could do with a cauldron) i like tall big pots as jam does have a tendancy to boil over in my house. i dont do fancy thermometers and things, (ok so mine broke because i melted it but hey ho) big pot, big spoon to stir with, heated it up, remembered i had dogs to walk and dinner to make so i turned it off the heat and left it till later.
Finally when i got round to it about 10pm at night like usual, i brought it to the boil, stuffed a load of jars in the oven to sterilise and stirred my bubbling pot for what seemed like hours until it looked remotely thickend.
Then i grabbed my trusty saucer that i had forgotten to put in the freezer, grabbed a metal spoon and an icecube and tried to cool the spoon enough to test the jam while stepping over the dog that had decided to sleep right infront of the cooker.
Saucer and spoon not cold enough, jam not boiled enough, i do the doggy assult course across the kitchen to stuff the spoon in the freezer, then leap nimbly back to the cooker before it boils over.
Kitcat meanwhile was meowing plaintifuly because she hadnt been fed in at least 3 minutes. damn cat, hop, hop over another dog, through the gate, show the cat her food, back through the gate, miss the step, step on a dog tail, leap over yelping dog, narrowly missing the jam.
Right back to the freezer, check jam at least another 20 million times before it starts to wrinkle on the plate. Hurrah!
Finally take out the hot jars, use an oven glove and try not to disturb sleeping dogs. then ladel hot jam into the jars until you realise that you have far too much jam and not enough jars....
Rummage through the fridge and find half empty jars of jam and say, sod it and fill them up as well. eat these first.
Seal the jam jars with hot lids and wait for the satifying pop as they seal.
there you go. Dont forget your celebratory cup of tea after!
If you prefer a proper recipe with weights and stuff, here you go.....
although it doesnt need pectin
Ingredients
1.8kg blackberries
1 ½kg jam sugar (the one with added pectin)
juice and pips of 1 lemon
finger-tip size knob of butter (optional)
For the full details and instructions click the link below to the BBC good food site.
(im not affiliated, i just like their layout.)