A Very Proud Epicurean Moment

You may remember that before Darrell and Nigel went off on their X Factor Adventures they had been blackberry picking, well, I was a little bit vexed as they just left them on the side, leaving, as per usual, something for someone else to take care of, that someone namely being me!

I know I could have simply frozen them, but after all our bravado about taking up jam making, I decided that I had better take the bull by the horns, throw caution to the wind and get on with it. I found the simplest recipe I could on the tinternet, with the least number of ingredients …….. blackberries, sugar, and lemon juice ………

…….. and sterilised my jars!

Ever cautious though, I halved said ingredients as I didn’t want to rush into things too gun ho, risking a burnt pan bottom and an end result reminiscent of sticky black tar.

I followed the instructions to the absolute letter and stirred constantly until I thought the time was right to do the wrinkle test ……..

……. but putting a small dollop of jam on a dish in the fridge for a couple of minutes and then pushing my finger through it to see if it wrinkled ……. it wrinkled, it wrinkled like a “gud‘un” I was sooooooooooooooooo proud.

I then got bold, and decided to sieve the confection to make a seedless jam, as none of us are that keen on an overtly seedy jam.

 

I may have only made enough for half a jar of jam, but my mood was so buoyant I was almost floating on air. I think this has now given me the confidence to perhaps venture into making  larger quantities of “Towers Premium Blackberry Jelly”, subject to Darrell and Nigel’s expert opinion naturally.  I feel a review coming on!