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Blackberry Jelly
Put the berries in a jar and cover it; set it in a pan of water over the fire, and simmer about an hour that the juice may run slowly; pour through a jelly bag, putting a little at a time into the bag. Then measure the juice, and allow one pound of sugar to each pint. Boil the juice fast in a brass or enamelled saucepan for twenty minutes, then add the sugar, and stir till it is all dissolved. Skim, and simmer for about ten minutes. Pour into jars, which should previously be made quite hot. When quite firm, cover, and store in a dry cool place.
A straightforward juice-extraction jelly of the kind every Victorian household made in late summer. Two details need attention before you start: the pan and the set test.
- Skip the brass panUnlined brass and copper were standard preserving metals and were valued because they gave green fruit a bright colour, but acidic fruit sitting in them can pick up copper salts, and neglected brass forms verdigris. Use a wide stainless or enamelled preserving pan.
- The jar-in-a-pan methodThe berries go into a covered jar (the recipe does not say what kind) which stands in a pan of simmering water, so the fruit steams in its own juice rather than boiling in added water. A heatproof bowl over a large pan, or a covered ovenproof dish in a low oven for an hour, does much the same job. The point is undiluted juice.
- Do not squeeze the bag"A little at a time" is the instruction that keeps the jelly clear. Forcing pulp through the cloth pushes fine solids into the juice and clouds it. Let it drip, and expect it to take several hours or overnight.
- Imperial pintsThis is an imperial pint of 20 fl oz, not the American 16. A pound of sugar to 20 fl oz of juice is roughly 450 g to 570 ml, or about 1 lb sugar to 2 1/2 US cups.
- Boiling the juice firstTwenty minutes of hard boiling before the sugar goes in concentrates the juice and the pectin. Blackberries, especially ripe ones, are only moderately pectic, so this step matters more than it looks. A proportion of slightly underripe berries, or the juice of a lemon per pint, improves the set.
- Judge by temperature, not the clock"Simmer about ten minutes" after the sugar is an average, not a rule. Jelly sets at 220F at sea level, or when a spoonful wrinkles on a chilled saucer. Boil hard rather than simmer once the sugar has dissolved, and start testing at eight minutes.
- Hot jars, and a real sealHeating the jars prevents cracking when the hot jelly goes in, and heat was the main safeguard this recipe relies on. If you want to sterilise them, twenty minutes in a low oven is one way; fill while both jar and jelly are hot. Modern practice is to seal at once with a lid rather than waiting for the jelly to firm, or to process the filled jars in a boiling water bath for five to ten minutes.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of blackberries gives roughly a pint of juice, which with its pound of sugar makes something under 2 lb of jelly, or three small jars.
Blackberry jelly belongs to the hedgerow economy: the fruit cost nothing but the scratches, and it ripened late in the season alongside plums and damsons. The direction to use "a brass or enamelled saucepan" fits the late nineteenth century, when brass and untinned copper preserving pans were still ordinary domestic equipment, though objections to cooking acid fruit in them were being aired in the same period. The reliance on a jelly bag and a slow drip, rather than a strainer, reflects a standard in which clarity was the mark of a well-made preserve.