Last weekend the Milk Pail had containers of blackberries for super cheap. Since making homemade cranberry sauce, pies, whipped cream, stuffing, turkey, and other delicious things for Thanksgiving didn't quite satiate our desire for cooking, we decided to embark on a day of homemade deliciousness. I made up a recipe for blackberry jam (which thankfully turned out well) while Matt made bread and butter.
Blackberry jam
12 cups washed blackberries
4 cups sugar
1 cup orange juice
lemon juice from one lemon, plus zest
Directions: In a large pot, combine ingredients and simmer until blackberries soften and begin to break apart, about 20-30 mins. Separately, sterilize a bunch of jars (I filled about 10 jars of various sizes) in a pot of boiling water for at least 20 mins. Transfer the jam to hot jars, tighten lids, and re-boil for about 10 minutes.
What 12 cups of blackberries look like
Boiling away and smelling delicious
The finished jam jars
Bread
1 cup warm water
2 teaspoons yeast
pinch of salt
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
~2.5 cups unbleached white flour
enough buttermilk for the top
Directions: Put yeast in warm water, along with a tiny bit of honey, sugar, or flour. After a few minutes there should be foam on top, which tells you the yeast is happily munching on the honey, and you should proceed. In a large bowl, add the water+yeast, the whole wheat flour, and about a cup of white flour. Mix together, then add salt. Slowly add the rest of the flour as you knead the dough. Knead for about 10 minutes. Let sit for 1 hour for the dough to rise. Punch down and let rise a second time. Punch down and form a loaf on a baking sheet. Let rise a final time. Brush the top of the loaf with buttermilk to brown. Place in 375F oven for ~35 minutes.
Measuring and kneading
Freshly baked loaf
Butter
1 pint heavy cream
pinch of salt
Directions: Put heavy cream in a jar of at least double the volume. Let sit for a couple hours - apparently this works better with cream that is closer to room temperature. Shake the jar for about 20 minutes. After a little while the cream will double in volume and turn into whipped cream. Keep going! At a certain point it will seem like nothing is happening, but keep shaking. Eventually, and dramatically, the whipped cream will suddenly separate into a ball of butter surrounded by buttermilk. Keep going for a couple minutes. Open the jar and drain out the buttermilk - you can drink this, use in pancakes, or feed to your cat. Next, wash the butter with cold water by filling, shaking, and pouring out the jar ~10 times until the water runs clear. Next, you want to knead the butter. The goal is to get rid of any excess buttermilk, which will cause the butter to go bad. We used a spatula on a cutting board, but you could probably also do this with your hands under cold running water. Once you're satisfied that you got most of the buttermilk out, add a pinch of salt to the butter, scoop into a container, and refrigerate.
ready set go!
Shake shake shake!
Pouring off the buttermilk
We made butter!
Enjoying the fruits of our labors
