Spiced Blackberry Syrup
Recipe by: Joe Friday Uploaded by Drimble Wedge
- 6 half pint baskets (about 8 cups) ripe blackberries
- 1 cup water
- 4 cups sugar (enough for once cup of sugar for each cup of juice)
- 1/2 tsp of broken cinnamon stick
- 1/2 tsp whole allspice, slightly bruised
- 1 whole blade of mace
- 1 whole clove
- 1 small scrap of whole nutmeg or a tiny pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 T strained fresh lemon juice
Pick over, rinse and drain berries. Place in a food processor and whirl them briefly to a coarse puree or push them through a food mill with a coarse disc. Stir in 1 cup of water.
Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Strain the mixture through a cheesecloth or filter lined sieve, pressing moderately hard with a spoon when the juice flow slows. use care to not force pulp through the sieve. You can also use a jelly bag, which is what I would recommend.
You should have roughly 4 cups of juice from this process. Add 1 cup of sugar for every cup of juice, keeping a 1/1 ratio. Add spices. Heat the berry, spice and sugar mixture over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat to allow the mixture to boil and boil for 3 minutes. Remove mixture from the heat, stir in lemon juice and let cool until lukewarm.
Strain the syrup through a very fine sieve or a sieve lined with 2 layers of dampened cheesecloth or 1 dampened nylon filter to take out any spice pieces. Discard spices.
At this point if you're going to use it right away, just pour it into a bottle, cap or cork and use within a few months. To can for long term storage, heat the strained syrup to a boil and ladle it into clean, hot half pint or pint jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Process for 15 minutes in a water bath canner.
