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Spiced Blackberry Jam

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Spiced Blackberry Jam is a lovely way to use the produce of the hedgerows.  I’m a big fan of foraging for free food and, I’m lucky because I have hedgerows right on my doorstep so no shortage of blackberries.
Blackberries and Spiced Blackberry Jam

When autumn (fall) starts to creep in, it’s definitely time to start preserving the harvest from your garden or the hedgerows.  People have been preserving food since ancient times. Evidence shows that Middle Eastern cultures were using the heat of the sun to dry their foods as early as 12,000 BC—for reasons of survival or culture or both. Fast forward to the present day, and preserving our food, perhaps home-grown, seasonal, local, organic, or free-range, is an essential and enjoyable part of a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

Wisdom for Home Preservers by Robin Ripley is a comprehensive guide to preserving in all sorts of different ways including bottling, freezing, drying, fermenting, salt curing and smoking and cold storage/root cellaring. This isn’t a cookbook, there are no recipes, but it is full of really helpful tips which will help you get the most from your produce and answer any questions you might have.

About the Author

Garden and food writer ROBIN RIPLEY has been growing, cooking and preserving fresh food from her garden since moving to a small farm in rural Maryland 15 years ago. She is an enthusiastic experimenter of all things related to food, including bread and pastry baking, wine and cheese making, canning and preserving. She is co-author of Grocery Gardening and also raises pet chickens. Robin writes and talks regularly with groups about gardening, potager design and the importance and joy of supporting locally-grown and fresh foods.

blackberry jam, book and blackberries

Here are a few of the useful tips:

  • Tip 158: Pick the right bowls and pots for pickling
    Avoid containers and utensils made of unlined copper, iron, zinc or brass when pickling.  These materials may react with acid and salt and can cloud or discolour your pickles.  For pots, pick such materials as stainless steel, heatproof glass or hard-anodised aluminum.
  1. Tip 254: Set your freezer temperature to -18 Freezer temperatures settings should be set to -18 C (0 F) or lower.  Not all freezer settings are accurate, though, so get a freezer thermometer, available at supermarkets and kitchenware retailers, and regularly monitor the temperate and adjust the setting if needed.
  • Tip 279: Create your own herb meat rubs
    With herbs rolling in from the garden by the basketful, don’t forget you can mix the match them to make unique and delicious rubs for meat and poultry.  For poultry, try combining dried lemon thyme, sage, rosemary, salt, and pepper. For beef, try a combination of dried thyme, sage, marjoram, garlic and onion powders, pepper and salt.
 
Wisdom for Home Preservers
Author: Robin Ripley, Publisher: Apple Press  RRP: £12.99
 

Spiced Blackberry Jam

As Wisdom for Home Preservers doesn’t have any recipes, I am sharing a recipe that I have adapted from a variety of sources.  Blackberries, particularly wild blackberries, contain a lot of seeds.   When I made the recipe, I used whole berries, however,  you can also puree the cooked berries.  You do this by putting them through a food mill or push them through a sieve to make a puree which will make a smooth jam with no seeds.

Spiced Blackberry Jam and Blackberries
 

WHY NOT PIN THIS IMAGE FOR LATER?

More Blackberry Recipes from Farmersgirl Kitchen

Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Blackberry and Apple Crumble 

Blackberry and VAnilla Cordail

Blackberry and Vanilla Cordial 

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Hedgerow Vodka

blackberry jam, book and blackberries

SPICED BLACKBERRY JAM:

Janice Pattie
Enjoy the intense flavour of dark fruity blackberries spiced with cinnamon, star anise and cloves.
4 from 8 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 5 mins
Cook Time 40 mins
Course jam, preserves
Cuisine British
Servings 50 teaspoons
Calories 12123 kcal

Ingredients
 

  • 1 kg blackberries
  • 1 star anise
  • 3 whole cloves
  • 1 small cinnamon stick
  • 2 lemons juice
  • 1 kg white sugar warmed

Instructions
 

  • First sterilise your jars, by washing and rinsing them, the placing in the oven at 100C for about 20 minutes until they are dry. Leave them in the oven as they should be warm when you fill with the jam.
  • Wrap the star anise, cloves and cinnamon in a piece of muslin and tie with string
  • Put the blackberries and the spices in a large pan with 2 tablespoons of water
  • Cook until soft.
  • Mash the fruit with the back of a spoon
  • Remove spices, you can then either leave the berries whole or press them through a sieve or food mill
  • If you are making the puree, wash the pan then return the blackberry puree to the pan and add the lemon juice. I
  • Heat, stirring to prevent the blackberries sticking.
  • If you are using whole berries no need to wash the pan, simply add the lemon juice to the pan and proceed with the following instructions.
  • Add the warmed sugar stirring until dissolved
  • Turn up the heat and boil rapidly until the jam has reached the setting point
  • Pour the hot jam into the sterilised jars.

Notes

Makes approx. 500 ml jam, about a jar and a half.

Nutrition

Calories: 12123kcalCarbohydrates: 3121gProtein: 17gFat: 6gSaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 53mgPotassium: 1978mgFiber: 62gSugar: 3048gVitamin A: 2140IUVitamin C: 324mgCalcium: 430mgIron: 10mg
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I’m adding this recipe to The Great British Blackberry Recipe Round Up, a Linky party which Karen at Lavender and Lovage and I are running throughout Blackberry season 2015.  Click through to the GBBR post for full details.  You will see that I used the photo from this post for the Linky badge!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Emma Walters says

    i have just started growing lots of food & now have an allotment – yay! would love to start some pickling next year & going to grow lots of shallots & beetroot to try, just need the perfect book to help me now 😉
    @emmav6

    Reply

  8. debbie finnerty says

    i love to make a plum jam/chutney my grandfather has a plum tree in his garden so always has so many left over so i snap them up 😉

    Reply

  31. fern says

    i so want to get into i all, never tried before. we have a raised veggy plot in our garden which has spent this year establishing, hopefully we will get some decent crops next year, we also have a cherry tree and apple tree so hoping to have good hauls from them next year too. mine & OH's first place and with our young fa,ily were looking at doing as much our selves as possible. i need a bit of a hand though!

    [email protected]

    Reply

  49. lisapop says

    I enjoy making jams although I sometimes find jellies a bit tedious. I recently tried making damson ketchup & it turned out surprisingly well.

    Reply

  50. Kristy Brown says

    This is my first harvest this year so am looking at chutneys and jams which I have never done before – before I started growing food the only way to preserve it was to hide it from the tribe!

    Reply

  61. Mark says

    I made this recipe with about a third the jam and it filled three jars. The proportion of sugar looked way out to me, especially given the guidance is to make 500ml / 1.5 jars. Something didn’t seem right.

    Reply

    • Janice Pattie says

      Hi Mark, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have looked at the recipe and I agree that the sugar quantities seem wrong. I’ll have a look today and amend in line with standard proportions. Please accept my apologies for any error.

      Reply

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