Wild blackberry jam (no pectin)

It’s August and it’s time for blackberry season again. I love both blackberry jam and cordial in summer, and they are super simple to make. However, you need at least a kilogram of blackberries to make a decent amount of jam and cordial, which can be very expensive to buy from a supermarket.

This time of year is perfect to cook with blackberries though, there are miles and miles of blackberry bushes in the fields near our home… all for free. That’s why blackberry foraging is one of our favourite activities. 😁 Wild blackberries looks exactly the same as the cultivated ones you find in the supermarket so you won’t have any trouble identifying them. But if you are very new to wild food and are not 100% sure, or would like some tips on how to pick them, you can also check out my wild blackberry foraging guide.

Blackberries have a naturally high pectin content which makes it so simple to make blackberry jam. All you need for these recipes are sugar, blackberries, and freshly squeezed lemon juice to help to bring out the berry flavour. Once again, if you haven’t noticed yet, this recipe makes both blackberry jam and cordial.

The amount of sugar you use depends on personal preference. Most recipes use a 1:1 ratio, but the resulting jam is overly sweet for my liking. I’ve made many different attempts and I think the ratio of 1:0.8 is the best for me.

First, you want to wash the blackberries and discard any that are damaged or overripe.

Then add the blackberries, lemon juice and sugar to a large saucepan, mix well.

Cover and leave the fruit at room temperature overnight.

The following day you’ll see that most of the sugar has dissolved, and a lot of juice has “sweated” out from the blackberries.

Place the saucepan on low heat for 3 minutes to gently warm up the blackberries without boiling. Stir often until the sugar has dissolved entirely and has developed a nice deep blackberry flavour to the juice. 

Switch off the heat and carefully pour out 80% of the juice and set aside. It should be around 350-400ml. Please visit here to continue the blackberry cordial recipe.

The amount of juice remaining in the pan should be just enough to cover all the blackberries. Place the saucepan back on the stove on a medium-low heat until it starts bubbling. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally until half of the water has evaporated and the mixture starts to thicken.

Turn off the heat and let the jam rest for 15 minutes. Once the jam has cooled down, draw a line across the bottom of the pan with a spatula. If the jam is ready it will not flood back to fill the gap; if it’s too runny, boil for another 3-5 minutes and then test again.

Skim any scum off of the surface, stir well, pour the jam into sterilised jars and seal.

Place the jam jar in hot water and boil for 10 minutes to kill all the bacteria and to properly seal the jar. The jam can keep for at least six months in a cool, dark place. Refrigerate jars once opened.

From 1kg of blackberries, I made 2 lovely jars of jam.

This is a delicious homemade jam made from freshly picked wild blackberries, sugar, and lemon juice – perfect with a slice of sourdough bread or summer yogurt parfait. No jam sugar (pectin) is required. The jam and cordial are both so tasty, by the time I finished writing this recipe both jars are empty and so we are going picking again this week! 😂 Blackberry season ends between late September and early October, so there’s still weeks left to enjoy it!!

Let me know if you try out this recipe. You can leave a comment below, or take a picture and tag it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!