Blackberry is a tasty, healthy and fragrant berry. A close relative of raspberries, it has a pronounced taste with sweet notes and slight sourness. Not surprisingly, blackberry jam always turns out to be appetizing and is so popular with kids and adults. A thick delicacy can be spread on bread, added to pancakes, used as a filling for pies, etc. In addition, it helps to strengthen the walls of blood vessels, cope with colds, and lower body temperature.
Cooking features
To get jam without a single bone, the fruits need to be held in hot water for several minutes, then rubbed through a fine sieve or gauze. Upon exit, all excess seeds will remain on the sieve, and the mass can be used further. If you need to leave whole berries for jam, then you should not wash them before cooking. And during cooking, gently stir with a wooden spatula so as not to damage the pulp.
It is desirable to cook jam in a wide and voluminous bowl or pan. It is best not to interfere with it, but only occasionally shake the container. To get a fragrant and brighter dessert, you can use the juice or zest of lemon and orange.
Proper selection and preparation of berries
To choose ripe fruits for jam, use the following tips:
- 1. When choosing berries, pay attention only to ripe and resilient ones. If the blackberry is overripe or soft, then the delicacy will turn out to be too liquid. And unripe fruits will lead to the formation of sourness in the jam.
- 2. Before harvesting the berries, it is necessary to sort out, remove adhering debris, leaves and dust. Washing and peeling the fruits is a must.
- 3. It is important to pour the jam only into sterilized jars, which will retain all the useful substances of sweetness and will not allow it to deteriorate quickly even when open. To process them, it is enough to use the oven or boil the containers in boiling water together with the lids for several minutes. But you can close the jars with lids made of different materials, which depends on the method of preparing and storing the dessert.
Pitted Blackberry Jam
The recipe will require the following products:
- 1 kilogram of blackberries;
- 1 kilogram of granulated sugar;
- half a liter of water.
Peel the berries from the stalks, wash well and dry on a paper towel. Next, pour all the water into the vessel and heat to a temperature of 90 degrees. Add blackberries to it and leave for a few minutes. Cook over low heat so that the mass does not boil. Drain the liquid, and transfer the berries to a sieve and grind.
Put the resulting blackberry puree into a non-stick saucepan, add sugar, mix with a wooden spoon and boil until thick. After a few minutes, the jam will be ready. It can be poured into prepared sterilized jars and rolled up with lids until winter. You need to store the delicacy in a cool dark room.
Classic recipe
To prepare the classic version of blackberry jam, you only need berries and sugar in equal amounts.
The berries are carefully and carefully washed, sorted and dried in a colander. After the blackberries are transferred to a cooking container and covered with sugar. The berry-sugar mixture should be left for half an hour in order for the juice to appear. Next, the container is sent to the fire and slowly boiled to a density. Thirty minutes will be enough to get the desired consistency.
In pre-washed and sterilized jars, spread the jam up to the very neck and tightly close the lids. The containers are turned upside down, wrapped in a warm blanket, and after cooling, they are stored in a cool place until consumed.
"Five Minute"
Products for cooking:
- one kilogram of fresh berries;
- one kilogram of granulated sugar;
- three grams of citric acid.
The five-minute recipe is a very quick way to make delicious jam. First of all, the berries need to be sorted out, washed and allowed to drain. Blackberries are placed in a large bowl or pan, alternating layers with sugar, and left for five hours to soak.
After the specified time, the pan is sent to the fire, brought to a boil and boiled for 5 minutes. Add citric acid and cook for another 5 minutes. Lay the jam in jars, cover with plastic lids and store in the refrigerator.
Blackberries and oranges
Jam with citrus fruits is a particularly fragrant and spicy delicacy, for the preparation of which you will need the following ingredients:
- two oranges;
- one lemon;
- kilogram of sugar;
- kilogram of berries.
The fruits are sorted and washed from the remnants of the bushes. Orange is also washed, the zest is cut off and rubbed very finely on a grater. Juice is squeezed out of an orange, which will be the basis of the jam. He goes to the container where the delicacy will be cooked. Sugar and zest are added to it. The mixture is brought to a boil over low heat.
The result should be a syrup that needs to be cooled, add berries and leave for a couple of hours. Two hours later, the pan is again sent to a small fire for half an hour. Ten minutes before readiness, lemon juice is added. The jam is very tasty and fragrant.
Jam with apples
Ingredients:
- kilogram of fresh blackberries;
- kilogram of apples;
- one and a half kilograms of sugar;
- lemon;
- a tablespoon of odorless vegetable oil;
- one hundred grams of liquor;
- three hundred milliliters of water.
Apples need to be washed, cut into quarters, remove the middle and cut into thin slices. Put them in a saucepan, pour in water and blanch for about ten minutes to make the fruits softer. Juice is squeezed out of a lemon and sent to apples. Next, blackberries are added to them. Cook for ten minutes, stirring constantly and removing the foam. Add liquor, spices as desired and cook for a couple more minutes.
The pan can be removed from the stove, add oil to the mixture, mix everything well and remove the foam. The jam must be cold. The finished dessert is poured into jars, covered with parchment paper and covered with plastic lids.
Banana Flavored Jam
Ingredients:
- kilogram of blackberries;
- kilogram of bananas;
- kilogram of sugar.
We wash and clean the berries. They can be laid out on a paper towel so that the excess liquid is drained and the fruits dry. We transfer the prepared blackberries to a container with a thick bottom, cover with sugar and leave overnight to stand out the juice. At this time, cut the bananas into circles or cubes.
When the time for infusion of blackberries is up, bring the mass to a boil and cook for half an hour. We send bananas to it, cook for another five minutes. Pour the jam into prepared jars, roll up or close with polyethylene lids. Store the delicacy in a refrigerator or cellar with a low temperature.
Frozen fruit jam
Frozen blackberries are just as great and healthy to cook as fresh years. Whole frozen fruits are quite suitable for the recipe. You will need the following ingredients:
- 500 grams of frozen blackberries and strawberries;
- 1 kilogram of sugar;
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice.
Frozen berries are placed in a saucepan, sprinkled with sugar and left to infuse for a couple of hours. Blackberries and strawberries will release juice, which then needs to be scooped out of the container. Add some lemon juice for a pleasant sourness. Then they send the pan to a small fire, wait until the mass of berries boils, cook for five minutes.
The pot should have high sides, because the jam will rise high during the boil. After that, the mass can be left to cool slightly and pour into clean sterilized jars, close with lids and put away before the onset of cold weather.
Plums and blackberries
Various fruits and berries are often added to blackberries, which make the jam much tastier and more aromatic. To prepare treats with plum and cloves you will need:
- half a kilogram of blackberries;
- half a kilogram of plums;
- two hundred grams of raspberries;
- one and a half kilograms of sugar;
- juice of two lemons;
- spices: cloves, vanilla sugar, etc.
Berries and fruits, except for raspberries, need to be washed. Put in a saucepan, pour in the lemon juice and add a few sprigs of cloves. Pour all the ingredients with water and send to the fire. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat for an hour.
After the specified time, use a pusher to turn the contents into a puree, put on a sieve and leave to drain overnight. Send all the juice to the pan, add sugar and cook until a sugar syrup is obtained. Next, increase the heat and cook for another twenty minutes with fruit. Jam can be poured into ready-made jars and closed with lids, sent for storage until winter.
The problem of brewing
The cooking time of blackberry jam directly depends on the chosen recipe and the ingredients that are included in it. To make jam or jam thick, you can cook from one to two hours. But sometimes ten minutes is enough, especially if whole berries are used in the recipe, which should not be boiled soft. Also, jam can be made in a slow cooker in a special mode.
Useful properties of blackberry jam are known to all. But with prolonged heat treatment, the berries lose all the trace elements that the body needs in the cold season. To avoid this, many grind blackberries with sugar in equal proportions.
