Terrific Jam

I made my first jam last weekend. I had been to the park and picked a bagful of blackberries and, following some internet searches, also bought a couple of apples for added pectin. They were supposed to be Bramley but that's not a variety you find here so I substituted.

I don't have any canning equipment but jam-making is very easy. You don't have to boil the full, sealed jars (although you can), so really it's just a question of boiling the fruit and filling the sterilized jars. I don't have a dishwasher either so I sterilized the jars in the oven. This was the website I used most, although I cobbled directions and ingredients together from several. It was essentially a pound and a half of blackberries and the same of sugar, plus two apples, and enough water to more or less cover the fruit. The website tells you how to know when it's starting to set and mine took about three times longer than it was supposed to, to the point where I was settling for blackberry and apple sauce.

However, it did set and it tastes pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself. I gave away a jar today to some visiting friends who live way up in the Northwest Territories where I think even sunlight has to be shipped in in winter.

My kitchen looked like a purple horror movie afterwards. Here's my weapon of blackberry destruction:

And, as you can see, a funnel would have been handy and will be my next purchase (hopefully at Value Village):

And the verdict? Brilliant. Blackberries from round the corner, sugar, BC apples. Not a whiff of corn syrup.