Grab your family and your tupperware; it’s bramble picking time! We LOVE Blackberry season, which usually starts at the end of summer and brings us into autumn, serving us sweet, dark, squishy, versatile berries. Whilst last year we were obsessed with a good blackberry crumble and custard, this year is all about the blackberry jam.
It all started when my little boy came home with a huuuge tub of blackberries after spending a Friday afternoon picking them with his nanny and grandad. We had no space in the freezer for them; I had neither the energy nor the ingredients to make a crumble, and so my hubby said he would make us a jam! I said “OK” and gave him a suspicious little side-eye, because I didn’t even know he could make jam… and guess what?…it came out SOOOO GOOOOOD, and I am not even usually a jam girly!
And so when our sweet home ed gardening group planned its blackberry-picking excursion, I thought this would be the best time to pick hubby’s brain and share his recipe.
But be careful because this heat wave weather in the UK means the blackberries are drying up and are getting quite small earlier than usual, potentially from the lack of water. So if you are going to go blackberry picking, go ASAP.
Once you have you blackberry stash, try this blackberry jam recipe. With only 3 ingredients, it was easy peasy lemon squeezy!
INGREDIENTS
BLACKBERRIES
CASTER SUGAR
A FRESH LEMON (Lemon juice is optional, as your berries may already be tart and tangy, but we love the little bit of citrus to help give the sweetness of our berries a little kick)
METHOD
- Put a saucer in the fridge or freezer to get cold; you will need this later.
- After washing your blackberries, crush them with a potato masher or any tool in the kitchen that can do the same job! This releases the juice and helps it cook faster (We used approximately 600g of what my little boy had picked when he was out with nanny and grandad)
- Combine the sugar, lemon and blackberries in a pan and stir them well. Heat over a low heat until all the sugar is dissolved (a low heat prevents the sugar from crystallising). This took my hubby somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.
- Now that the sugar is dissolved, turn the heat up to medium, so that the jam is just below a rolling boil for about 15 minutes, stirring often.
- Now, take your cold plate out of the fridge and drop a splodge of the jam on the plate. Pop it back in the fridge for a minute or two. After the minute or two has passed, take it out of the fridge and poke it gently with your finger. If it has started to congeal and doesn’t run and slide off the plate when you tilt it to the side, then it’s done.
