Blackberry jam

Another free-food recipe from wonderful blackberries - delicious jam! It may sound fussy, but it is really quite fast and simple, and only takes three ingredients: blackberries, lemon and sugar.

Here's the recipe I used for suggested quantities, proportionate to the 500 grams of blackberries we had.

Before starting, I put the jam jars in the oven at 170 Celsius to sterilise them and left them until finishing the jam. More info on sterlising jars here.


As the recipe states, I added the blackberries with a bit of water. And then added the sugar and lemon juice. I did not use preserving sugar, but some raw cane granulated sugar that was in the cupboard, I think any granulated sugar will do. 



The one trick about jam making is to stop it boiling when it has reached setting point. At this point, it will still appear liquid when hot, but it will settle once it cools.



There are various ways to test the setting point. One simple way is the 'plate test'. Put a plate in the fridge before you start making jam. After about 15 minutes of boiling, take the plate out, place a drop on the plate and return to the fridge for 2 minutes. If the jam reached setting point, the drop of jam will not drip when you tilt the plate. In addition, if you poke it with your finger, it should be slightly wrinkly on top. If the jam is not set, return the plate to the fridge and test again every 5 minutes or so. Here's my plate below at the point when the jam has set, pointing at a drop indicating setting point. And here are some additional instructions for this.



Optimistically enough, I had prepared three jars, but 500 grams of blackberries only made two jars. After setting, leave the jam to cool for 20 minutes or so, then place in the hot jars. Leave to cool in the jars for a while longer, and place the caps on while still warm. And label. Ours was cooked with the London Paralympics in the background on tv.

    

Blackberry delights

Some friends may know that we recently moved home to a different city. One of the difficulties with this is that we have no idea of the best places for foraging.
One week this summer, as I was commuting on the train, I saw some elderberries out the train window. Based on this, the following weekend we got on the train in search for the mythical elderberries in that area. Despite walking around the countryside for hours there was no sign of elder trees... apparently they are confined to the train tracks area...
We only had some limited luck with blackberries, about 250 grams worth of luck for hours of walking around. Not enough for wine or jam, but enough for some quick desserts.

About half of blackberries went into blackberry muffins. I'll write the recipe at the bottom of the post.


The other half went into a delicious and simple sauce. Here's the recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3118/blackberry-coulis. It makes a great topping for icecream!




And also makes some very quick desserts. For instance, for the one below, we used this recipe as a foundation http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3102/blackberry-honey-creams and added some chopped hazelnuts to give it some crunch.  Yum!

Blackberry muffins

300 grams of plain flour
50 grams brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
60 grams of ground almonds
100 grams blackberries
2 eggs
200 ml milk
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp of sloe gin (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients together and wet ingredients together. Mix the blackberries into the dry mixture and add the wet mixture to it. Bake in a baking tray for 20-25 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.
 
(adapted from Baking by Martha Day)