Blackberry Jam

This past week I had the great opportunity to visit Marburger orchard outside of Fredricksburg to pick fresh, delicious Blackberries. We were given these small cardboard baskets and given a row to pick from. The weather couldn't be any better and there a relaxing morning quiet in the air. After two baskets each we headed to the peach orchard. Because it had just rained the peaches were covering the grown, ripe but damaged. Luckily enough there were plenty golden pink peaches safely hanging from the trees.

12 hours later... Aside from the excitement of spending time in the orchard on on the vine, I had my mind on jam. I started the morning going through all my cookbooks on canning, preserving, and fruit to see if I could find unique and creative recipes for all the Blackberries I would have. There were a few recipes for unique ideas such as blackberries in Framboise and blackberry bundt cake, but I decided that I wanted to go with a classic, Blackberry Jam.

4 hours later... When making jam and jellies it is important to do each batch "individually" and not to double or triple the recipe. So this means each batch used 4 cups of the crushed blackberries and I had 28 pounds to process! This time we decided to save some of the concentrated crush blackberries to put into our morning fruit smoothies. I like to pour the blackberry pulp and juice into a muffin pan and freeze over night. I then take the result, which takes the shape of a hockey puck and fill a zip lock bag with the "pucks". Now when we go to make our smoothie we simply pop a puck into the blender with some fresh peaches, frozen strawberries and a splash of freshly squeezed orange juice.

My favorite thing about canning and pickling is having the final product to give out to friends and family. They make wonderful gifts or just a random gesture that show a friend we really appreciate them!