Homemade Blackberry Preserves | Printable Labels | Saving Summer

Easy Homemade Blackberry Preserves

As I mentioned last week, we have a prolific amount of blackberries due to my Dad's blackberry patch.  After making several Blackberry Cobblers, we still didn't seem to make a dent in the berries.  

Sometimes in the middle of summer bounty, you can almost forget the bleakness of winter that is just 6 months away.  Our Granny used to always put up peaches in the summer and get them out on Christmas morning.  They were always a little frozen and slushy, and delicious on Christmas morning.  A little breath of summer.  

The thought of bottling a little bit of our carefree summer in the form of Blackberry preserves gave Emma and me a little motivation after school last week.  I can't wait to get these out to top our biscuits for a snuggly fire-side breakfast this winter. 

While I did consults some recipes, truth-be-told, I have no idea how much sugar is in our preserves.

That's what happens when I'm behind the camera and Emma is in charge.

I was shocked to find out how much sugar other recipes sited - ours was not nearly as sugar heavy.  I wanted it to taste like fresh blackberries, not sugared jelly.

I think it was a little something like this : 

6 cups of Blackberries

1 1/2 - 2 cups of sugar

juice of 1 lemon

Put it in a big saucepan and cook for maybe 30 minutes.

As I said, I wanted to preserve the taste of a fresh summer blackberry, so I didn't mash or smash or attempt to remove the seeds.  Not only will they be more of the essence of a real summer berry, it was much easier.  Much easier.

While the berries continued to simmer and thicken (cooking for almost 1 hour on low heat), I sterilized the jars in water for 5 minutes.  Just make sure the water is simmering.

I removed the jars with tongs and put them on a pan for filling.  Make sure jars are still hot when spooning in hot jam so the jars don't break.

I found that ladaling the mixture into a pouring measuring cup made filling very easy.

Our recipe made 5 jars.

I sealed the jars by submerging them in simmering water for 10 minutes and watching until there were no more bubbles coming out.  For detailed canning instructions, try here.

Of course I needed some cute labels for our jars.  I used the 2.5" Printable Circle Labels from my store.  They come as 6 sheets of 12 for $5.  I love having them around to make homemade goodies look great.

Here is the template download for the labels.  You can personalize them, of course, for anything.

Now, if I could just bottle up this...  

Happy Summer : )

Blackberry Peach Cobbler Cake

We have a prolific amount of blackberries around here.  My Dad's blackberry bushes are in full swing and producing buckets and buckets of blackberries daily.   Lucky for us, Emma can eat buckets and buckets of blackberries each day - her favorite berries.  No doubt that her love started 3 years ago in this photo when we baked "Mrs. Ross' Blackberry Cobbler" for Mike.  : )

This cobbler recipe has popped up on Insta a couple of times this summer as a favorite of many readers.  It is still one of our favorites, too, and I make it often with combinations of fruits and berries - whatever we have.   I also use an array of flavors to enhance the fruit, too.  Sometimes vanilla bean paste, sometimes almond extract.  It is a really flexible recipe that you keep in your back pocket and turn anything into a great dessert.

This time I used blackberries and peaches.

I chunked up the peaches (skin on!  I like the flavor of peach skin) into 1" -ish pieces.

I forgot to take a photo with the melted butter in the bottom - but don't skip that step!  It makes the edges caramelized and chewy.

You can see how the butter goes around the sides of the batter.  Yum.

I also forgot to take a photo before serving.  It was hot.  I was hungry. 

We served it with vanilla ice cream in big latte cups.

Is there anything better than cooked blackberries with a buttery cake?

Berry & Peach Cobbler Cake

1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar 
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
3-4 cups of fruit sweetened to taste

Melt butter until it starts to brown.

Pour half in baking dish.   I like to use a shallow pan like this tart/quiche pan.
Place fruit on butter in baking in baking dish.
Mix flour, sugar & baking powder with milk.  
Pour over the rest of the melted butter.

Bake about 30 min @ 350 degrees.