Friday, January 20, 2012

Berry Good

The blackberries I picked up at the grocery store this week were pretty well picked over by last night and I knew one more night out would leave them looking a little rough, so jam it all!  I measured them out and threw sugar over them in 3:2 ratio of berries to sugar.  That is a mathematical PITA when you have just over 2 cups of berries, so I in reality, eyeballed it and put them in the refrigerator overnight to deal with today.

yes, that looks like a lot of sugar, but the berries are winning, honest!
Fast jamming of small batches seems to work quite nicely in my skillets and this being an especially small batch, I took a chance on the 10" skillet having enough room without boil over.  I did some fast stirring but lucked out and it did not foam over.  What an amazing mess on a glass top stove that would have been had I been wrong!  I smushed about 2/3 of the berries with a potato masher to give some body to the jam while still leaving a few whole berries as a nice surprise here and there.

I had 3 sadly whizzled up Meyer lemons in the refrigerator so I juiced those for a little acid insurance (and a zippy taste to my jam).  Once it started to look "jammy" - and really, you will know - I pulled it off the stove to a hot pad and filled my sterilized jars.  To can, they spend 10 minutes in the water bath canner, plus 15 for my special high-altitude location.  I am now wise to the idea of removing the canner from the heat and let it sit, lid off, for 5 minutes before removing my jars to cool unmolested on the counter. 

That's it.  As easy as that and I saved fruit from a white fuzzy death or consumption by the dog, who loves berries and aren't I excited about that for the someday in my future when I get berry bushes. 

Blackberry jam





5 comments:

  1. Just found out you have a blog! You have a new follower.

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    1. yay! How did you find it? I do remember saying something on FB...Also, as soon as I lay hands on a coffee filter, I am finished making the limoncello!

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    2. I looked you up on Ravelry to see what's on your needles and thats when I saw you had a blog! Maybe I'll try making the Limoncello.

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  2. Why do you let them sit in the canner after the time is done? I see that in some recipes, but they don't say why.

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    1. I believe the idea is to reduce the possibility of siphoning by allowing the jars to come down slowly from the pressure built up in the processing phase. The recommendations I have seen are 5 minutes for water bath canning and 10 for pressure canning.

      I have largely seen what happens if I *don't* do it! As with my tomatoes

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