“There was much more than she’d asked for: hot bread, butter and honey and blackberry preserves, a rasher of bacon and a soft-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, a pot of mint tea. And with it came Maester Luwin.” (I: 113)
Blackberry Preserves
Our Thoughts:
These preserves are bursting with the intensity and vibrancy of spring! Slathered over a buttered scone, the tanginess of the blackberries is balanced wonderfully by the relatively meager sugar content (as compared to commercial jams). A perfect destination for berries that are either fresh off the plant, or at the end of their life, this recipe can be followed using other berries as well, or even mixing berries. If pectin is added and proper canning technique used, these preserves could be saved to brighten up a dreary winter morning.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups mushed blackberries
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- Ball or Mason jar (or any other glass jar with a lid)
Notes: Pectin is not a preservative. It is a naturally derived (apple peels, lemon pips, etc have lots of pectin) gelling agent created to replace the long boiling times that it takes sugar to naturally gel at. Sugar must hit a specific temperature to begin to gel and care must be taken to stir the fruit and sugar constantly and allow the temperature to build evenly to avoid burning. Pectin helps to replace some or all of the sugar’s gelling properties.
If you want to make a preserve shelf stable it must be water bathed. Two cup batches of fruit are usually easy to consume within a week or two, tho, so they can be store in the fridge for short periods.
Thanks for the notes! We clearly are not canning goddesses. Which works out fine, considering food can’t last longer than a week in our house…
Looks wonderful!
I always do water baths for everything, so they have a longer shelf life.
Great stuff. all of it. … i wrote down all of the food the protagonists eat in “A game of thrones”. but you probably did that yourself… anyway: http://fantasyfilter.blogspot.com/2011/06/game-of-thrones-menu.html