Preserve

Preserve - to prepare (food) for future use, as by canning or salting.

August 9, 2009

This is some of the blackberry syrup I bottled yesterday. After church Lane made up some French toast so we could try it out, and it was really good! I think it needed just a little bit more sweetening, but that's just my sweet tooth talking. Lane thought it was fine as is. Here is the recipe from my Ball Blue Book of Home Canning:

2 1/2 quarts berries
3 cups water, divided
1 2-inch strip of lemon peel
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups corn syrup
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Crush berries. Combine berries, 1 1/2 cups water and lemon peel in a medium saucepot. Simmer 5 minutes. Strain through a damp jelly bag or several layers of cheesecloth. Combine sugar and 1 1/2 cups water in a medium saucepot; boil to 260 degrees F (adjust for altitude). Add berry juice and corn syrup to sugar syrup. Boil 4 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. Ladel hot syrup into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Yield about 3 pints.



So here's what I did differently: I skipped over the whole first part with the lemon peel and the cheesecloth. I just dumped the whole load of berries into my food mill, which did an excellent job of separating the seeds out, tiny as they are. So after I did that part, I picked up with the sugar and water boiling part and continued from there. I managed to get 6 1/2 pints though, instead of the 3. The recipe in my Ball Blue Book is actually for strawberry syrup, so among all the things I changed maybe that's why the difference. I would definitely do it again, though, and add a little more sugar just for my taste.