When I got my blackberries home, I realized that they would make an excellent jam. I hadn’t made any preserves since June, which was unusual considering all the fruit that I received through the orchard’s community supported agriculture program. That realization made me want to make jam even more; it’s such a complex activity that I need to keep my skills sharp! So I dug out my canning book and looked up what I could do with my blackberries. The options included an “old fashioned” blackberry jelly, a blackberry jam with lemon zest, and a blackberry jam with cracked coriander. Naturally, I was attracted to the odd pairing with coriander. I told myself that made sense because I had a bag of coriander seed, but no lemons.
Of course, when I checked the recipe, I discovered that I would have to go back to the grocery store anyway. The recipe required a total of three pounds of blackberries, as well as one pound of granny smith apples. Fortunately, blackberries were still on sale, as were the apples. I didn’t think to check the status of my supply of canning jars and labels before I left for the store; miraculously, it turned out that I had an unopened case of jars, which were much more of a necessity than the labels. All I needed next was the time and energy to convert this bounty into jam.
Thanks to a snow and ice storm on Saturday night, I found myself “trapped” at home on Sunday. Perfect opportunity to make jam!
I had toasted and crushed the coriander seed earlier in the day, so my first step was to get all the necessary equipment for water process canning organized and underway. I filled my super large soup pot with enough water to reach the lip of the pasta strainer insert and then set it on a high heat. From past experience, I learned that bringing all that water to a boil could be a choke point in the process,; therefore, it was best to get it started as early as possible. Next, I set a smaller kettle of water to boil while I removed the lids and bands from the four-ounce glass jars that I would be using for canning. Since the recipe said that it made seven half-pint jars, I estimated that I would probably need fourteen or fifteen four-ounce jars. All the lids went into a small saucepan that would be filled with hot water to sterilize them. Because the bands didn’t require sterilization, I set them aside where they wouldn’t be in the way. Once the kettle whistled, I filled each jar with boiling water to sterilize the interior. The leftover water went into the saucepan to sterilize the lids.
After all that was taken care of, I turned to quartering and coring the granny smith apples. Because blackberries are naturally low in pectin, adding the apples was necessary to boost the pectin enough for the mixture to jell. In fact, the recipe required reserving the cores and seeds so that they could be tied up in a cheesecloth sack to help boost the pectin in the jam. The recipe required one pound of apple quarters, so I broke out my kitchen scale to get as close to the mark as possible.
Making the Jam
The jam recipe began innocently enough: simmer the blackberries with two cups sugar until the juices just cover the berries. That was only supposed to take five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, the juices that had formed in my pot were simmering but not covering the berries. I was mildly frustrated. And then I gave the mixture a moderately violent stir, and realized that the recipe had failed to mention was that blackberries floated in their juices! At that point, I turned off the heat and proceed to pour the contents of the pot through a colander into a plastic measuring cup in order to separate the berries from their juices. The juices went back into the pot with the apple quarters, the pectin booster pack, and the crushed toasted coriander seed, while the blackberries continued to drain in the colander.
It was supposed to take fifteen to twenty minutes of hard boiling for the peels to fall off the apple quarters and for the mixture to reach 220F. At about the twenty minute mark, I saw the mixture hit 217F on my digital thermometer; however, the peels were still firmly affixed to the apple quarters. From experience, I knew that the last two or three degrees were always elusive. It could easily take another ten minutes to peak at 220F. However, the syrup was thickening at a rate that it seemed likely to burn in that time. And the peels still weren’t off the apple quarters! Therefore, I got inventive: I used a pair of grilling tongs to pick up an apple quarter by its tip and then used the spatula to scrape the pulp off the peel. Since that seemed to work rather well, I repeated the process with all the apple quarters that I could find. Because the mixture had gotten super thick from the apple pulp, it was difficult to tell whether I had gotten all the peels. So I actually counted the peels in the discard bowl. There were ten. That meant that I could proceed without fear of finding an errant apple peel.
The last step of the recipe required simmering the drained blackberries, any excess juice, and lemon juice in the thickened blackberry-apple syrup until the mixture passed the wrinkle test on a frozen plate. That was only supposed to take about ten minutes. Since I never understood the cold plate wrinkle test (and forgot to put a plate in the freezer), I figured I would just bring the mixture back to 220F instead. At about fifteen minutes after the combination, the mixture had only reached 214F. But the blackberries were starting to break down, and the mixture was thick enough to draw a spatula through it. So, I called it. I turned off the heat and let the mixture settle a little before moving on to water process canning.
Conceptually, water process canning is simple: fill the jars, put the lids on, tighten the bands, boil in the spaghetti pot for five minutes, remove from the spaghetti pot, let cool completely. It’s pretty brainless, but extraordinarily tedious. Before filling the jars, I had to dump out the water used for sterilization and then move them to the counter nearest to the stove. Each jar was supposed to have one quarter inch of headspace, but I found that impossible to estimate due to the size of the funnel that I was using. Some jars definitely had more headspace than others! Before putting on the lids, the jars needed to be wiped off with a damp paper towel to remove any jam that might interfere with the seal on the lid. Talk about tedious! Once the bands were finger tight, the jars had to be transferred into the boiling water in the spaghetti pot. Of course, there were a few splashes and other close calls as I wedged the jars into the pasta strainer insert. That was necessary to keep them off the bottom of the pot, where they could shatter. The most precarious step in the water process canning operation was removing the boiled jars from the pot (with specialized tongs) and setting them down to cool. It doesn’t sound like all that much of a challenge, but I only had enough room for them to cool undisturbed on the counter on the other side of the room. So there I was, carrying a wet super hot jar, with even hotter contents, across the room with a pair of tongs… Knock on wood, I’ve yet to drop a jar!
The Verdict
I saved a half full jar of my blackberry coriander jam from water process canning and, instead, put it directly in my refrigerator. However, due to an unexpected shortage of peanut butter, I’ve yet to properly taste it. I’m dying to know whether I can still turn out a decent batch of jam.
As always, I'm sure it tastes as great as it looks!
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