Simple Blackberry Jam and Syrup

The Texoma Gardening blog has discussed making jams and jellies of various kinds in the past, but I’m going to visit the topic once again today.  We headed out to a pick-your-own blackberry farm this week (Jenkins Farm in Bonham) and came home with a load of beautiful, sweet berries.  We have put a sizable dent in our take just from eating them a handful at a time, but I decided to try my hand at blackberry jam and syrup last night.

With my old tried and true jam recipe at the ready, we went to work.  Unlike many fruits, we used the whole berry here.  The seeds got added to the mix along with everything else.  If you’re going for a smoother jelly, you may want to strain your pulp.  With the whole fruit method used here, we found that three cups of whole berries roughly equaled two cups of mashed up pulp.  Therefore, it took six cups of whole berries and four cups of sugar to get things going.  Because the berry mix was so thick, I lowered the cook time to try to prevent over thickening of the end product.  Here’s what we did:

Take 2 cups of blackberry pulp and add to a large pot.  Stir in two cups of sugar.  Bring to a strong boil and stir often for 8 minutes.  Add another two cups of pulp and another two cups of sugar.  Bring back to a boil and continue stirring. 

At the three minute mark, we filled two half pint jars to be used as syrup.

Continued cooking the remaining mixture for an addition five minutes (8 minutes total after the second two cups of berries and sugar were added).  Pour this into prepared jars for the jam.  Seal the lids and process the jars.  Many people give the filled jars a hot water bath at this point.  I’m not one of those, but that doesn’t mean you have to be like me!  (I find that all that sugar keeps things in fine shape regardless, but the hot water is probably a good idea).

The end result was very lovely syrup, which we tested this morning on our pancakes.  The syrup, along with some fresh blackberries, made for a delicious breakfast.  The jam ended up at a very nice consistency also, and I’m going to call our first foray into blackberry preserves a big success.