Blackberry jam with liquorice

This time I have decided to twist this jam recipe on blackcurrant jam with liquorice and lemon by replacing the blackcurrant with blackberries, as it is time for balckberries here and now in Denmark.

As usual I use addition of vinegar at the very end for taste modification, as I find vinegar to bring the fruitness into jam. Do the addition little by little, so you do not overdo it.


Blackberry jam with liquorice:

• 1200 g blackberries 
• 600 g jam sugar
• 1 teaspoon of raw liquorice
• 2 tablespoons of sweet liquorice syrup
• 1 organic lemon - zest and lemon juice
• 18 g pectin
• ½ teaspoon vinegar

1. Heat up the blackcurrant, lemon juice and zest in a cooking pot.
2. Heat the fruit up to 80'C. Mix the pectin/gelling powder together with 50 g sugar. Add this dry-mix slowly to the blackberries, while you stir very well in the cooking pot to avoid lump formation.
3. Let the blackberries cook slowly for another 5 minutes. Stir on a regular basis.
4. Add in the rest of the sugar together with liquorice powder and sweet liquorice syrup. 
5. Bring the jam to the boiling point and let it boil for 2 minutes.
6. Taste the jam. If you find it too be to sweet/matured in taste, you can add some more vinegar to bring freshness back to the jam. I normally do this in smaller steps, so I can fine tune the flavour profile to my preference. It is more easy to add some extra, than to remove an overdose of something. 
7. Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. I do not use any preservatives in my home-made jam, so this is important to increase shelf-life of your jam. Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards.
8. Fill the glass with jam and when close the glass.
9. Store the jam cold.