Blackberry Lemon Jelly

The blackberries are in!  This might be my favorite time of the summer.  Every week of the season we paced up and down the length of the blackberry patch inspecting and speculating about the upcoming berry crop for year.  The sighting of the first juicy blackberry of the year elicits giggles of delight, I just can’t help it! This year the blackberries are as fruitful as ever.  This is a good year. I see lots of blackberry jelly in my future.  In fact, I see lots of beer jelly in my future, too.

Potlicker Jelly is about to make a tiny leap into a larger kitchen.  Tall Dark & Handsome and I are headed to the Vermont Food Venture Center so that we can scale-up our recipes. This will help us share the wealth, meaning that more stores can carry Potlicker Jelly.

Expect more small changes during the coming months.  The blog will begin shifting format and the jelly jars will look a wee bit different.  I hope that I can keep up with it all!

Today I would like to share with you my Blackberry Lemon Jelly recipe.  Blackberry Lemon is a flavor that I produce for my farmers market stand during the month of August when the blackberries are plentiful.

In my early jelly days I went looking for a blackberry jelly recipe I and I turned to the tried and true Ball Blue Book.  After making that recipe and variations of it a dozen times, the blackberry lemon has become my most popular version.   This is full of blackberry flavor with none of the pesky seeds.  The addition of lemon zest gives quite the lemon kick.  For a more subtle lemon flavor do not zest the whole lemon. The recipe below calls for blackberry juice, use the technique described in this post from summer 2010.

Blackberry Lemon Jelly   yields 8half-pints

• 4c blackberry juice
• 7c sugar
• 1T lemon juice
• Zest from 1 small lemon*
• 2 pouches (6oz) Certo liquid pectin

Over med-high heat, combine the blackberry juice, lemon juice and sugar together in a large pot and stir until the sugar is melted. Continue to stir.  When the juice mix comes to a rolling boil add the pectin and again stir until the jelly returns to a boil. Boil for 1 minute. Remove the pot from the heat and allow to rest.  Check for gel by using the spoon test.

The jelly foam will rise to the top. Skim the foam and add lemon zest. Ladle jelly into jars. Wipe the rims and process ½ pints in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.

*the lemon zest can be added initially and will rise with the foam and therefore less zest will be in the final product. If you do not object to a little bit of texture in the jelly, add the zest after skimming for maximum flavor.