Blackberry jam recipe(not blackerry & apple)

meanmarie

My mother never bought a jelly bag but used an old pillowcase to strain pulp for jelly....she made gallons of jelly in her lifetime and never had a failure.

If the blackberries ever ripen in this part of the world will make some jam!

Marie

morg_monster

Mmmmmmm! I made a few pots about a month ago with a very similar recipe (no apple), they ripened early here. Want to make another batch now but not sure the weather is going to comply with picking! Strangely I have been eating a lot more toast for breakfast since making my own jam!
Re the jelly bag / straining - I do find the sheer amount of pips in bramble jelly a bit daunting, and with emerging wisdom teeth there are lots of places in my mouth for them to hide and cause problems! So I cooked down the blackberries on their own first, mashed them up with a masher, and then put about 80% through an ordinary sieve before putting it all back together again and continuing with the jam. I really couldn't be bothered with "proper" straining, so just pushed it through with a wooden spoon. If you really give it some welly you don't lose too much (although of course the yield will always be smaller)
Anyway I was really pleased with the result, only a few pips and it set better than I was expecting without any pectin.
I do find that if you pick a few not quite ripe berries (i had about a handful in 2kg), it helps the setting.

Angelfeathers

morg_monster wrote: »

Re the jelly bag / straining - I do find the sheer amount of pips in bramble jelly a bit daunting, and with emerging wisdom teeth there are lots of places in my mouth for them to hide and cause problems! So I cooked down the blackberries on their own first, mashed them up with a masher, and then put about 80% through an ordinary sieve before putting it all back together again and continuing with the jam. I really couldn't be bothered with "proper" straining, so just pushed it through with a wooden spoon. If you really give it some welly you don't lose too much (although of course the yield will always be smaller)
Anyway I was really pleased with the result, only a few pips and it set better than I was expecting without any pectin.
I do find that if you pick a few not quite ripe berries (i had about a handful in 2kg), it helps the setting.

I picked some more blackberries yesterday (the first lot went on extremely delicious ice-cream) and am planning to do something similar to this, since I really don't like pips.

Chipmunky, you really don't need to buy a jelly bag. I just use an upturned kitchen stool with a mixing bowl in the base, with a baby muslin (or a bit of old sheet) attached with elastic bands to the feet of the stool. It works absolutely fine.

motherkitty

Made some blackberry jam yesterday which I thought was going to set. packed into jars and it is still too runny. I think I should have added lemon juice to help it set after reading some comments on here.
My question is, will it be OK if I tip it back into a pan and boil it back up, possibly adding some lemon juice (if so, how much juice?).
Will this work or is it too late and I will just have to accept the fact that it won't set now?

Penelope_Penguin

motherkitty wrote: »

Made some blackberry jam yesterday which I thought was going to set. packed into jars and it is still too runny.

Did you test for a set? I'd be inclined to reboil, with the juice of a lemon, and then test for a set after about 10-15 mins, and then at 10 min intervals

BTW, what was the recipe you used?

markandkate

You should be Ok to re boil but if you ar w orried try one jar first to see if is Ok

motherkitty

Thanks for the replies.
The recipe was equal amounts of blackberries and sugar and a little water. I did wonder whether I needed to add anything else such as apples as a lot of recipes seem to be for blackberry and apple, rather than blackberries on their own. I did test for a set and it seemed OK but was starting to taste a bit 'treacly', so I didn't really want to boil it for too much longer just in case it burnt.
I will try and boil it up again then with some lemon juice as I don't suppose I have anything to lose!

Justamum

Is it still juice, or just a soft set? If it's soft set why not leave it that way?

Penelope_Penguin

motherkitty wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.
The recipe was equal amounts of blackberries and sugar and a little water. I did wonder whether I needed to add anything else such as apples as a lot of recipes seem to be for blackberry and apple, rather than blackberries on their own. I did test for a set and it seemed OK but was starting to taste a bit 'treacly', so I didn't really want to boil it for too much longer just in case it burnt.
I will try and boil it up again then with some lemon juice as I don't suppose I have anything to lose!

If it's starting to have a burnt taste, I'd leave well alone and use it as a sauce for puddings or ice cream

I'll add this to the existing thread to give you more ideas.

Tish_P

I use Delia's quick bramble jelly recipe which just has blackberries and lemon juice. The recipe says to line a sieve with gauze but I don't bother, I just sieve it. It probably means it doesn't keep as well as properly made jelly... but it never keeps very long in our house anyway 'cos we eat it.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/fruit-/quick-bramble-jelly.html