Did you know that blackberries are a stone fruit?  Me neither. But, learning this tidbit dovetailed nicely into the “September Stone Fruit Challenge.”


There are a large number of blackberry bushes on the hill above our parish, so after church last Sunday, I (without bringing a change of clothes or sensible shoes) picked a plastic bagful of blackberries. This made me realize (or remember) that I really am not much of a berry picker. I much prefer buying my berries already picked. But, be that as it may, I came home and put up the blackberries into a syrup.

From the Ball Blue Book, I used this recipe *

1 ½ - 3 lbs berries per quart

Sugar and water to make a syrup.

Raw Pack: Wash berries, drain. Make a light or medium syrup (I made a light syrup of 2 ¼ cups sugar and 5 ¼ cups water.) Keep syrup hot. Ladle ½ cup hot syrup into hot jar. Fill jar with berries. Gently shake jar to pack berries closely without crushing, add hot syrup to cover berries leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two piece caps. Process pints 15 minutes (20 minutes for quarts) in boiling water canner.

*there was a discrepancy between the Ball Blue Book and the Big Ball Book – the Blue book indicated that blackberries hold their shape well when heated and should be hot packed. The Big book indicated they do not hold their shape well and should be raw packed. Since I am lazy, I chose to go with the raw pack. My yield was 7 pints.

In the background, you can see the dill relish I made the same day – I came home from church to discover that one of my coworkers and good friends had brought me pickling cukes. I started the dill relish (as it has to sit 2 hours,) then pickled the remaining cukes, and then did the blackberries. While the blackberries were processing, I finished making the dill relish. It was a very good day in the kitchen.