Blackberry Preserves

Ingredients:

300 grams (approximately 2 cups) of blackberries

150 grams sugar*

Juice from 2 lemons

Zest fo 2 lemons

Step 1: Place washed blackberries, lemon zest, juice, and sugar into a pan and turn on the heat.

Step 2: Bring berry mixture to a low boil, stirring every couple of minutes to prevent burning.

Step 3: Once mixture comes to a low boil, lower to a simmer, again stirring every few minutes to insure fruit and sugar don’t burn.

Step 4: Berries will reduce by about half once they are ready, you can test to make sure your preserves have set by putting small amount onto a frozen plate and see if it runs or just floats around the plate. If your berries are not ready, continue to let it simmer for another 5 minutes. Repeat until your preserves have set.

Step 5: Put your preserves in a jar (or container). If you are planning on making your preserves shelf stable follow proper canning steps to insure food safety. If you are not making your preserves shelf stable, allow them to cool down before placing them in the fridge.

*If you want to make a jam instead of preserves you will need to have a 1:1 ratio of sugar to fruit so for this particular recipe you would need to add 300 grams of sugar. I find that’s too sweet for me so I add the least amount of sugar possible that will still be shelf stable. Alternately you could add homemade or store bough pectin to help firm your jam up instead of using more sugar however I have not done that so I do not have any recipes for pectin added jam.