Have blackberries, will make jam

It's that time of year again and I have a wonderful abundance of blackberries at the bottom of my garden, so I made some time last weekend to make some jam.

Having had the experience of making jam for the first time last year, I felt a lot more confident about it this year; hopefully I had learnt from last year's mistakes!  Plus, I now had a jam thermometer to help me (a Christmas present I was looking forward to trying out).

I picked about 700g of fruit; to this I added about 900g of jam sugar.  Note to self: pick less fruit next time or get a bigger pan!

The jam thermometer makes the process so much easier, as it takes away the element of uncertainty.  I have to admit I still did use the "plate" test (putting a small drop of the hot mixture onto a cold plate to see whether it sets when cool), but this was simply a consistency check measure.

I am really pleased with the colour and consistency of the finished jam; I think it is a little too sweet and so I think with the next batch I will use less jam sugar - although it will be interesting to see how this affects the cooking process, as blackberries are a low-pectin fruit and so with this batch I used more sugar-to-fruit to counter this (jam sugar contains added pectin).  Watch this space...

Sweetness aside, I can confirm that there is a sweet(!) enjoyment in having your own homemade jam spread on your toast for breakfast; a very satisfying way to start any morning.