Blueberry Marmalade – A Friend Favorite

One of my favorite marmalades to make and eat is Blueberry Marmalade. This isn’t a flavor most of my friends and family would chose as a first or even third choice in the store, but when you share this homemade marmalade with them it seems to be the crowd favorite! Blueberry is a strong flavor and it needs something else to break up the bold; the orange and lemon segments in this recipe are the perfect complement.

Here’s the recipe I follow and a photo of my getting it ready this year.

1 large Valencia orange

1 lemon

¼ cup water

¼ cup strained fresh orange juice

¼ cup strained fresh lemon juice

½ cup water

4 cups blueberries (about 2-3 pints)

½ teaspoon unsalted butter

5 cups sugar

1 (3-ounce) pouch liquid pectin

Using a zester, remove only the outer colored peel of the orange and lemon. Peel the fruit, removing all the white pith (the pith will make your marmalade bitter). Separate the orange and lemon segments from the white membrane and remove any seeds. Discard the membrane and seeds. Finely chop the fruit and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the drained peel, chopped citrus fruit, orange juice, lemon juice and ½ cup water. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Sort, stem and rinse the blueberries.

Add the blueberries and butter to the citrus mixture and simmer, uncover, for 3 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Gradually stir in the sugar. Heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Increase the heat to medium-high. Bring the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the entire contents of the pectin pouch. Return the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat. Skim off any foam.

To prevent floating fruit, allow the marmalade to cool 5 minutes before filling jars. Gently stir the marmalade to distribute the fruit. Ladle the marmalade into hot jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace Wipe the jar rims and threads with a clean, damp cloth. Cover with hot lids and apply screw rings. Process half-pint jars in a 200F water bath for 10 minutes, pint jars for 15 minutes.

Recipe from, “Blue Ribbon Preserves” by Linda J. Amendt

Favorite Summertime Drink: Blackberry Infused Vodka

I’ve tried a couple different vodka infusions, but one of my all time fav’s is blackberry and this is for a few reasons: 1) you can’t buy it at the bottle shop 2) it has this cool purple color in the end and 3) it comes out REAL nice.

I’ve have tried raspberry, but there is something to it where you need to add sugar to bring out a ‘true’ raspberry flavor. With blackberry it’s just vodka & berries.

So now that we’re in the hot days of August (at least here in Boston!) and we’re planning end of summer activities, why not add a vodka infusion to your September bbq! Here’s how you make it:

You can use any size bottle of vodka and any brand you prefer (I have used Absolut in the past). For larger sized bottles I use two punnets of blackberries.

In a larger pot heat the vodka so it’s warm, but not boiling. While you’re doing that, wash out a lidded glass container with hot soap and water. Rinse well and dry.

Lightly crush the blackberries and add them to the clean, glass container.

Gently pour the vodka over the berries and swirl the mixture around a few times.

Cover the opening of the glass container with two layers of plastic cling wrap then put on the lid.

Put the container in a paper bag and store in a cool, dark place for one month. Swirl it every week to keep things moving a little.

After a month, pour the mixture through a sieve to separate the fruit from the vodka. Then, line the sieve with four layers of cheesecloth and pour the liquid through. Repeat this a couple of times rinsing the cheesecloth between each pour.

If you’re super neurotic (like myself) you can then line your sieve with coffee filters and pour the liquid through a few times (changing the filter each time).

Now you should have a clear vodka that’s ready to drink! Mix with tonic or soda water and a lime and you’d think you’re drinking summer…. :-) (Drink responsibly, of course!)

Sterilizing Jars – What’s the “Right” Way?

I’ve spoken to a few different people about how they process jars and each one has a different approach. Some keep the traditions grandma taught them, while others will say grandma’s techniques are outdated.

So what’s the “right” way? How you can you be confident you won’t give your friends botulism if you hand them a jar more than 2 months old?

Well, no pun intended, but this is kind of a “hot topic” in home canning and that’s the trick I have learned – it’s all in the temperature.

Now, my mom worked in quality control so I’m about as neurotic as they come when processing jars. I wash my jars in either the dishwasher on the hot cycle or with soap and hot water in the sink. Then I sterilize them in water at 212 degrees for at least 10 minutes. The lids I wash in soap and hot water and I keep the lids hot/warm in water so the rubber seals well on the jar. The jars are hot when I pack them with my jam/jelly, etc. and after I seal the jar it’s back in the water at 212 degrees for 10 minutes of processing. This is truly the neurotic approach.

But is all this fuss necessary? Maybe not. Technically speaking you need to be operating at 212 degrees – how you sterilize with that temperature can vary.

I’ve watched a very talented jam/jelly maker pack their hot (212 degrees) product into cold jars, seal the jar with cold lids and tip the jar over until it seals. This is because the product is the right temperature so it sterilizes the inside of the jar and seals it. She’s never had a problem and sells her product at boutiques in New York!

There’s also the oven approach. You can oven heat your jars to 212 degrees and pack your hot product into those. You can either flip the jars over after you’ve put the lids on or put them into a water bath for 10 minutes (or less time if you’re working with ¼ pt. jars).

So after all this, what is the best way? Well, I think it’s a comfort level thing. I’m comfortable being neurotic about my approach because I know it’s about 99% fool proof. But it’s fussy and, technically, you’d probably be just as okay packing the product into cold jars and flipping them over to seal.

So have a play around with an approach that works best for you, but don’t forget it’s the temperature that will make or break it – you’ve got to be at that hot 212 temp. And these tips are for small batches for home canners – if you’re doing anything on a larger more commercial scale you need to do your proper research.

Will it set??

No matter how long you’ve been making home preserves there’s nothing more disappointing then when the jam, jelly, marmalade, etc. doesn’t set. Sure, you can open and pour ALL your jars back into a pot, add MORE sugar and pectin only to do the process all over again, but how frustrating is that?

So, how do you know if you’re recipe has set? There’s a few different approaches out there (get it to a certain temp., roll boil for a defined amount of time, etc.), but the only tried and true method I have found is the spoon test. I found this in the Better Homes & Garden cookbook most of us probably have on our shelves (that our mom’s bought for us!).

Now, I’ve seen this work for both pectin and non-pectin recipes. Once you’ve roll boiled for at least a minute (or when you feel it getting thick for non-pectin recipes) start dipping a larger sized spoon in the mixture. When the mixture completely coats the spoon and forms one complete drop at the bottom of the spoon you can feel confident your mixture will set. On average (for pectin recipes) I’ve found this ranges from 1 ½ to 2 minutes of roll boiling – I like to make sure it’s going to set!

But this is also a preference thing. If you like a softer spread you may only want one minute of roll boiling. I prefer a more set spread, so will let it go for another 30-45 seconds. I’ve made one too many marmalades that haven’t set and been devastated after four hours of prep!

This is a part of home preserving I’ve enjoyed experimenting with and I continue to play around with it. When making non-pectin recipes get yourself a LARGE spoon (like serving size) and when you get one consistent drip at the bottom of the spoon you’re done.

Good luck – we all need it at that crucial stage!

Raspberry Jam - Softening Seeds with Champagne

Earlier this year I came across a raspberry jam made with champagne to soften the seeds. I’ve made raspberry jam in the past using a standard recipe and I thought it came out fine (all my friends seemed to like it!), but it is rather ‘seedy’. I know you can work some of the fruit through a food mill or sieve to reduce the amount of seeds, but that also reduces your amount of fruit meaning you need to buy more to get to four cups (or however much your recipe calls for). And we all know, raspberries aren’t the cheapest berry you’ll buy!

So this year I thought I’d give the champagne trick a try (and it’s not hard figuring out what to do with your leftover champagne!). I had the opportunity to ask the jam maker how he added the champagne to the recipe and he adds it during the roll boil stage. But I decided to experiment a little.

My recipe called for four cups of crushed fruit and I did want to remove some seeds, so I put about half the crushed fruit through a food mill using a plate with larger holes (you just get juice otherwise). Then I added the crushed raspberries, sugar, lemon juice, bit of butter and about ½ cup of champagne to my 8 quart pot. (I did add pectin in the roll boil stage).

The results: not bad, but I think it needs more champagne! I only added ½ a cup because I didn’t want to taste champagne in the jam, but next time I’ll go closer to ¾ cup. The seeds are softer and so it’s a nicer spread, but they could use a little bit more.

I also decided to add the champagne at the beginning so the raspberries had a longer cooking time with the champagne – so more time to soften. While I can’t know either way, I think it wasn’t a bad idea.

Another great benefit – more foam! The bubbles from the champagne make a lot more foam to skim off, which I put in a little container and froze. This is another experiment – making foam candy! YUM!!