If you are looking for a recipe for a Seedless Blackberry Jam that is delicious and can be prepared easily at home, this one is great! It’s suitable to make with wild blackberries as they have hard seeds and hearts that are removed before cooking the jam. My blackberry jam has a wonderful taste, with playful sweet and sour tones, a lovely silky texture and a beautiful strong colour. It’s the perfect topping for pancakes and desserts.

Wild blackberries, commonly known as bramble, grow in abundance throughout the countryside in Europe and other parts of the world at this time of the year. They taste fantastic in syrups and jams and won’t cost you a penny. I really enjoy foraging them on a sunny day. But, you may want to wear garden gloves when picking wild blackberries as their canes are terribly prickly and the juice from the berries can stain your hands.

HISTORY OF BLACKBERRY

Blackberries (formally known as Rubus) have the most widespread geographical origin compared to any other fruit in the world. They are thought to be native to Europe, Asia and North and South America. There are more than 375 species of blackberries known worldwide.

Greeks and Romans enjoyed the fruits of the blackberry as food and made medical teas with their roots and leaves. In ancient Greece, blackberries were commonly used for treating symptoms of gout. In the 18th century, some even called them goutberries for that reason.

On the other side of the world, the Native Americans also ate the fruits of the blackberry and made medicine with the plant. They used the berries as a natural dye and the cane for making a strong twine.

For centuries in Europe, the prickly bramble shrub is planted in hedgerows to keep animals and thieves away.

Many nations around the world have tales about the blackberry in their folklore. In some traditions, they are believed to protect against spells and curses, while in others, the deep purple colour of the blackberry represents Jesus’s blood and the cane – the crown of thorns he wore.

For a long time, blackberries weren’t cultivated and people foraged their fruits. The first attempt at cultivating blackberry was made in 1880 by an American horticulturist Judge Logan who crossbred blackberry with raspberry to create the loganberry. Even today, most of the well-known cultivated varieties of the blackberry in Europe come from the US.

Cultivated blackberries have a sweet and rich flavour and soft seeds. They are wonderful as a dessert fruit and can be used for making jams and syrups. In a week or two, I will post a fantastic recipe for a whole-fruit blackberry jam that you can make with cultivated blackberries. My granny used to make it and it was one of my favourite jams.

HOW TO MAKE EASY SEEDLESS BLACKBERRY JAM?

📋 INGREDIENTS IN THIS RECIPE

BLACKBERRIES:

The recipe here is perfect for bramble berries. When you are picking the berries, chose large and ripe ones for your jam. They are wonderfully sweet and juicy.

SUGAR:

The most suitable sugar for making jam is coarse-grain white granulated sugar as it produces an excellent clean jam. Fine-grain caster sugar can also be used. You do not need sugar with added pectin for this blackberry jam as the fruits contain pectin.

PRESERVATIVE:

When making small quantities of jam that you plan to consume within a month or so, you may skip the preservative but do keep the jam in the fridge. However, if you want to store your jam for an extended period, always add a preservative. You may also choose to process the packed jars of jam.

Citric acid is the most common preservative for making jam. You may think that citric acid is a natural product, but that is not always the case. If you want to find out why, you can read about it in my post, Cornelian Cherry Jam.

I personally prefer to use fresh lemon juice in this jam and add 1/4 cup of lemon juice per kilo of blackberries.

📖 STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

STEP 1. Sterilise the jars BEFORE PACKING WITH JAM

I like packing my jam in smaller jars because we do not eat much of it and that way the jam does not dry out. For me, 190 ml jars are the perfect size, but you can pack jam in larger jars. Any jam jars up to 380 ml in size will be fine. If you are not processing your packed jars of jam, you can use clip tops. Otherwise, it’s very important that you source screw-top jars with matching lids. To ensure your jam does not get ruined, use new lids or sterilise them with your jars. Some use pressure canners for sterilising which is believed to be the safest method. I normally sterilise clean jars in a hot fan oven at 160C for 15 minutes or use the water bath method.

How to sterilise jars and lids by the water bath method?

Wash the empty jam jars very well in warm soapy water, then rinse them with clean warm water to remove the soap.

Fill a large pot with hot water and heat on your hob. Drop the warm jars upside down in the hot water. That will make it easier to take them out of the pot later. Drop the lids in the water. Ensure the jars and lids are covered with at least one inch of water on top. Bring the water to the boil. Sterilise for 10 minutes. The timing must start from the moment the water reaches a full boil. If boiling too vigorously, reduce the heat but ensure not to interrupt the full boil.

After the set of 10 minutes, remove the pot from the heat. Fish the jars and lids with a pair of tongs and place them upside down on a clean dry tea towel. Let the jars and lids dry for 10 minutes before packing the jam.

STEP 2. Prepare the BERRIES

Place the blackberries in a colander and rinse them well with cold water. Remove any green bits left on the berries.

Transfer the blackberries to a large pot and pour a cup of water into the pot. Bring the water to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until the blackberries are soft. This will make it easier to separate the seeds from the berries.

Next, place a sieve inside your kitchen sink and pour the water with the berries into the sieve to discard the water and collect the fruits.

Press and rub the soft berries through a sieve over a large shallow heavy-bottom nonstick pot or a jam pan and collect the juices and the flesh into the pan. Discard the seeds and flesh left behind in the sieve. Although, it’s possible to do that later when making the jam, removing the seeds at that step is preferable as you are not wasting sugar.

STEP 3. Make the BLACKBERRY jam

Heat the pan with the blackberry juices, add the sugar and let the jam come to the boil. You can also add one cup of water to make the jam less concentrated.

Reduce the heat and let the jam cook for 20-30 minutes. Removing the white scum that collects on the surface of the jam is recommended, but not obligatory with this recipe. If you remove it, you will have a clear jam.

Add the citric acid or lemon juice when your jam is nearly ready, just a few minutes before removing the jam from the heat.

When your jam has reached the right consistency, remove it from the heat and let it cool down for 30 minutes.

HOW TO TEST IF YOUR JAM IS READY?

Place a drop of jam on a cool porcelain plate, if the drop of jam keeps its shape and is not runny, your jam is ready to remove from the heat.

STEP 4. STORING BLACKBERRY JAM

Transfer the warm jam into sterilised jars. Do not forget to leave 1-inch headspace in the jars when packing them. Wipe the jar rims clean and hand-tighten the lids securely.

Keep the jars packed with jam in the fridge and consume within a couple of months. If you plan to store jam for more than 2 months, you may want to process the packed jars in boiling water for 10 minutes. Some jam makers say that processing packed jars of jam is not necessary because the sugar preserves the fruit. Still, boiling water can help remove air pockets in the packed jars and seal the lids. You can only process packed jars with screw tops that can tighten securely. Clip-top jars are likely to open from the pressure in the boiling water and can cause ruining your jam.

Let the jars with jam cool overnight before putting them away in your fridge or pantry.

🍲 HOW TO USE BLACKBERRY JAM

There are so many mouth-watering desserts that you can make with this delightful blackberry jam. You can use it as a topping on ice creams, cakes and pancakes, or as cookie filling. Serve the jam in a continental breakfast or have it spread over buttered toast. It’s so delicious!

Enjoy! 👨‍🍳👨‍🍳👨‍🍳

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