Blackberry syrup
Foraging diaries # 16: Blackberry
It took me quite a while to collect blackberries but it was worth it as in the end I had gathered 1kg. Half was used to make jam and the other half to make Lynda Brown's blackberry syrup recipe.
According to Lynda, the syrup will flavour well milkshakes and smoothies or can be used as sauce for ice creams.
I followed the recipe and what I ended up with was a solid syrup. It was so thick I couldn't get it out of the bottle. I tried to warm up the bottle in a bain-marie with no success at all. In the end, a metal skewer was necessary to insert in the bottle to shift the syrup.
Serves: almost 500ml.
Ingredients:
- 450g blackberries
- 250ml water
- 175g sugar
- 25g citric acid
Method:
- Put the blackberries in a stainless steel pan with a thin layer of water in the bottom, and simmer very gently for the shortest time possible to extract the juice (about 3-5min). I think that 250ml of water should have been added at this stage.
- Squash the fruit with a masher.
- Strain the puree through a muslin-lined sieve or jelly bag into a clean bowl. Press the pulp in the sieve very gently to extract any remaining juice. I did not press gently as there was almost no juice at all. The syrup would be black so you can't really see whether it is cloudy or not. I pressed hard with my hands, working my wrist muscles in the process, and got the most out of it.
- Measure the juice and put it back into the pan. I got 250ml of juice.
- Add 350g of sugar per 500ml of juice, then add it to the juice with the citric acid.
- Stir until the sugar has dissolved.
- Once the sugar has completely dissolved, immediately pour the syrup into a sterilised bottle.
250ml bottle - A few hours later I realised that my cooled syrup had solidified in the bottle. Once I realised that a skewer would remove it from the bottle, I added the solid syrup to a pan and added 250ml of water and brought it to a boil and then immediately bottled it. This time it did not solidify.
500ml bottle
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