And they have kept on coming, so I looked for a recipe to make them into jam. The traditional thing is blackberry and apple jelly but I am, it has to be said, too lazy a cook to go in for all that putting through muslin - also I like jam better. I didn't have any recipes in my collection because my mother, Granny Joan, has kept me and the family in wonderful pots all these years so I haven't made jam very often. When the kids were young we did have a few strawberry picking sessions which ended with red stains all over the kitchen and the necessity to save some of the bounty as a runny jam for winter.
I found this recipe on http://www.cottagesmallholders.com/, a very useful looking country stuff website, and tried it out. It is bit messy but fun and I got some other side products from it - see below. I found the result, though beautiful to look at, a little sweet the first time, but B absolutely loved it and said it has made it worth his while to stay with me!
It also has to be said that it is really a jelly anyway without the muslin but lots of mess and that you can reduce the sugar to make a sharper end result - well worth it in my opinion.
Blackberry and Apple Jam
1 kg blackberries- try to pick the largest and softest ones and ignore any that are mouldy, obviously, or have red bits.
350g apples cut up fairly small, skins and cores included. You could use eating apples but I think you risk it being much too sweet. I used cooking windfalls, with the bad bits cut out, from a neighbour's tree.
So this is a cheap recipe.
White granulated sugar
- Put the blackberries and cut up apples into a large pan with deep sides and just cover with water.
- Put on a gentle heat till it all softens.
- Then sieve. This is the messy bit as I found there was lots of juice to sieve off first into one bowl. If you let all the juice into the mixture it won't ever set. Then push the bulk of your fruit energetically through the sieve so that you are left with the seeds and skins only. Throw these away.
- Now weigh the resultingmixture, a kind of thick juice, and put it with exactly the same amount of sugar into the rinsed out pan. So eg 500g pulp = 500g sugar; 953g pulp (what I had) = 953g sugar. OR measure out about 100g less of sugar at least if you like sharper tasting jams.
- Make sure the sugar is dissolved on a low heat and then bring it up to the boil and boil fast for 8-10 mins. Don't touch it or put it anywhere near you - hot sugar sticks and hurts.
- Test by putting a little on a cold saucer in the fridge, leaving for 2 mins and then seeing if you can push a track through it. Go for soft rather than too set as the flavour is better early on. You can reboil jam which is really too runny, but this recipe gave me a good firm jam in the first 10 mins. My mother puts jars of any runny versions in the fridge and then they set nicely.
- You need washed out jars sitting in the oven, turned on to Slow or No1 and then turned off. This amount made 3 jars as above.
- Now use a ladle, out of the pan, into a jug to pour it carefully into your hot jars. Leave until absolutely cold before putting on the lids.
I also poached some peaches in a little of the juice as an alternative to orange juice and they went a wonderful colour and tasted good cold.
Then I had to throw what was left of the juice away!
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