Category: Vegetarian Dishes

Blackberry Jelly & Syrup

When we pick berries, Jerri freezes the ones we don’t use right away. Frozen berries don’t have the texture of fresh fruit, but they work fine for pies, cobblers, crisps and jellies. One big advantage of frozen berries is that they keep a long time. We just made two batches of Blackberry Jelly and two bottles of blackberry syrup with three bags of frozen berries we picked last summer and one from two years ago. Both the Jelly and syrup turned out great.

My mother made blackberry jam rather than jelly because she made plenty of jelly from pin cherries, plums, crabapples and chokecherries. We made Wild Blackberry Jam two years ago when there were lots of berries for the picking at the cabin. You’ll find our recipe for it here. Scheduling problems meant that we didn’t get many blackberries this year, though we did get enough for a delicious cobbler at the cabin crafted by Jerri and garnished with ice cream from the local market.

However, we felt that the berries in the freezer would be better used for jelly, so we boiled them with water, strained the juice and ended up with some delicious jelly and syrup. After making two batches of jelly, we had nearly two cups of juice that I turned into syrup. Very little goes to waste in the Rang household!

Here is how to make some delicious blackberry jelly.

INGREDIENTS:

Blackberries
Water
Cloth to strain the berries
1 packet Sure-jell pectin
4 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. Butter
Paraffin or caps and rings to seal the jars

PROCEDURE:

Wash and remove any stems or leaves from the berries. Put them into a six quart pan or Dutch oven. Mash them a bit and add the water to barely cover the berries. Set the pot over moderate heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.

While the berries are simmering, measure four and one-half cups of sugar into a bowl and prepare the jars. Wash enough jars to hold seven cups of jelly and place them upside down in a baking pan over burners on the range. Add about an inch of water and bring the pan to a boil. After the pan has boiled for one or two minutes, turn off the heat and allow the jars to sit in the water for three or four minutes. Transfer them upside down on a rack and allow them to drain while you collect the juice.

Line a colander with three layers of damp cheesecloth or a towel and strain the juice from the berries. This can take a half hour or more. Do not squeeze the cloth if you want clear jelly.

Measure three and three-quarter cups of the juice into a six quart pan or Dutch oven and stir in the pectin. If you don’t have enough juice, you can add a little water. Add the butter to the juice while it is heating.

Melt the paraffin over low heat while the juice is coming to a boil.

When the juice reaches a rolling boil (one that you can not stir down), stir in the sugar and keep stirring until you have another rolling boil. If necessary, reduce the heat a little, but keep stirring the rolling boil for one minute. Remove the pan from the heat and skim any foam.

Turn the jars upright on wax paper. Use a funnel and ladle to fill the jars to within three-eighths of an inch from the top of each jar. If necessary, wipe the tops carefully and seal the jars with a thin coat of paraffin or lids and rings.

If you are using lids and rings, process the jars in a hot water canner for five minutes. If you choose to use paraffin, add a second thin layer of paraffin to the first after the jars are completely cool, and cover the jars with lids, plastic film or paper fastened to protect against dust.

If you have juice left over from making the jelly, you can easily turn it into syrup. Measure the amount of juice you have, stir in a little lemon juice and twice as much sugar plus a little more, and bring the mixture to a boil over moderate heat. Stirring constantly, boil for two or three minutes and pour the syrup into a bottle or jar.

NOTES: Here are the proportions I use to make syrup. For each cup of juice, add one teaspoon of lemon juice and two cups plus one tablespoon of sugar.

Madge Prewitt’s Apple Cake Revisited

Our friend Rich and I picked apples yesterday at his family farm near Luck, Wisconsin. Rich now uses his old home as a hunting shack, so most of the time there is no one to disturb the deer that, as Rich says, “give the tree a haircut” on those years when it bears fruit. They do a good job, too. Any apples within reach of a hungry deer disappear when they are ripe.

With Rich’s step ladder and and an apple picker loaned to us by a neighbor, we were able to harvest the apples the deer could not reach. Our prize was a lovely red giant nearly five inches in diameter that Rich managed to snag from a branch near the top of the tree. We drove home with more than two bushels of apples in bags and boxes to share with friends and neighbors.

While Rich and I were gathering food, Jerri was busy making her favorite apple cake with Haralson apples from another friend’s tree. She had found the recipe for it in the Louisville Courier Journal many years ago when we lived in Murray, Kentucky.

Jerri enjoyed the food column in that excellent newspaper very much and tried many of the recipes. One of the best was for a moist apple cake contributed by Madge Prewitt. Mrs. Prewitt died June 3, 2009 at the age of 90 at Corbin, Kentucky, but we shall remember her always for her delicious cake.

In the course of baking this cake for over forty years, Jerri has made two small adjustments that we think make a great cake even better and more foolproof. Apples are falling off the trees right now. If you see an apple tree that you think needs attention, stand up straight, put a smile on your face and ask the homeowner if you could pick a few apples to make Madge Prewitt’s Apple Cake. Offer to share a couple of slices, and you may well get an enthusiastic “It’s a deal!”

INGREDIENTS:

For the cake:

3 1/2 cups chopped tart apples
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. each cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves
1 cup English walnuts

For the glaze:

1/2 stick melted butter or margarine
1 T hot water
3/4 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar.

PROCEDURE:

Do not peel the apples. Just wash and quarter them and remove the cores. Chop the apples into a quarter-inch dice. Combine the sugar with the apples in a large mixing bowl and set it aside. Sift together the flour, salt, soda and spices. Chop the nuts into quarter inch pieces, put them in a small bowl and stir a little of the flour mixture into them.

Grease and flour a nine-inch tube pan. Preheat the oven to 375º and melt the butter.

Stir the melted butter into the sugar-apple mixture. Beat the eggs until they are lemon yellow and stir them into the mixture. Blend the dry ingredients into the apple mixture and stir the walnuts in last of all.

Turn the batter into the prepared tube pan and bake for about an hour. Ovens do not all bake the same, so check for doneness at fifty-five minutes. A toothpick inserted halfway between the tube and the outside of the cake should come out clean. Take the pan from oven and let it cool for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Use a knife to release the cake from the sides of the pan and central tube, then carefully tip the the cake onto a plate and allow it to cool to lukewarm.

To make the glaze, beat the melted butter or margarine and hot water into the sifted sugar and drizzle the glaze on the warm cake.

NOTES: Mix the batter by hand to preserve the texture of the apples.

The cake needs to be quite warm but not hot when you remove it from the pan. If the cake is too hot, it may break when you tip it onto the plate. If this happens you may have to eat the damaged part and explain to your guests that you couldn’t wait to taste this delicious cake.

An earlier version of this recipe appeared in “Courage in the Kitchen” on August 26, 2012.