Back in the day when MOH and I got together, and when we were ‘commuting’ between our respective houses one of MOH’s specialities was a bagel, cream cheese and blueberry jam. Something I’d not had before, but it was quite a hit. Initially this became a staple weekend breakfast, but over the years somehow it’s fallen off our radar, and I’m not really sure why.

Sometimes though life reminds you of these things, and circumstances even align. That’s exactly happened last week and resulted in a throwback breakfast, and very tasty it was too.

MOH had a planned trip to London, and as he would when we lived in Greenwich he stopped off at Brick Lane for some bagels. They really are the best, and I’ve an inkling that it was when we tasted these bagels (or beigels) that the shop bought bagels fell out of favour - there really is no comparison, trust me.

While MOH was in town I tested out my new preserving pan with the blackberries we picked from the local hedgerow following a recipe I’d tried before. I’m quite partial to a blackberry jam it seems, and had written about two on here before. This time I opted for the blackberry and lime jam, which simply adds lime zest to the jam mixture.

We picked about half a kilo of blackberries and that turned into two jars of jam - as you can see one’s a little larger than a usual sized jam jar, and there was also enough to fill a ramekin which we’d keep in the fridge and use immediately.

Two jars of homemade 'East Stoke Blackberry & Lime Jam' in my kitchen displayed on a patchwork home sewn reusable kitchen towel — MY HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY & LIME JAM PICTURED ON ONE OF MY NEWEST SUSTAINABLE ‘KITCHEN TOWELS’ MADE FROM MY WONKIEST PATCHWORK BLOCKS AND OLD TOWELS SEWN TOGETHER. PRETTY AND PRETTY USEFUL TOO!

Surplus homemade jam in a ramekin for immediate use, and a jam covered teaspoon on the breadboard

So with MOH bringing home the bagels, and my afternoon jam making - all I needed was some cream cheese, which fortuitously I had in the fridge. (It’s a great fridge standby and as well as on bagels, it’s also good for pasta and to make a quick cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese or lasagne - and it usually has a long ‘use by’ date too).

A bagel cut in half with each half topped with cream cheese and homemade blackberry & lime jam - yum!

So Brick Lane bagels, cream cheese and homemade blackberry and lime jam (not the blueberry jam we used to have, but close enough) and what a breakfast it was. The jam even solicited unprompted praise from MOH, so a result!

Isn’t it great when circumstances align?

So having foraged some blackberries the race began on how to use them. I'd pondered pairing them with some apples but decided to add walnuts to my apple crumble instead -

see 52 Cookbooks #37: Apple & Walnut Crumble.

I thought about an apple and blackberry upside down cake, but we already had the crumble and some apple compote for breakfast, so I wasn't sure when we'd find time to eat cake as well...

52 Cookbooks: the challenge is to cook a new recipe from one of my (many) cookbooks each week for a year...

Obviously though, we'd try our best...

I wanted something that would last longer and decided some jam would be just the thing, so I turned to this lovely book - 100 jams, jellies, preserves & pickles by Gloria Nicol, which I'd dropped very heavy hints about and MOH bought for me.

You know the sort of husband "hints" that go something like "I'd really like this book" followed by "you could buy it for me for x." That generally tends to work... but is often greeted with a "but x is months away yet" response.

So jam it was. And a spiced one at that.

The foraged blackberries went into the saucepan with a cinnamon stick, two star anise and three cloves, plus two tablespoons of water (to prevent the berries catching on the bottom). The smells were divine!

The berries cooked down and I used the back of a spoon to mash them further. At this point in the recipe it was optional to sieve the liquid. As the pips were putting me off a crumble or a cake I knew for the jam to stand any chance of being opened, those pips had to go. So strain it I did - and it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be.

The juice went back in the pan with two tablespoons of lemon juice and 700g of sugar. I used preserving sugar which looks (but doesn't taste) like rock salt - I checked!

With all the sugar dissolved it was time to head for a rapid boil. The colours as it started to boil were amazing, as was the smell...

I was nervous about knowing when I'd reached the setting point - I used the cold saucer method - but each time I tested it, it seemed fairly runny but was clearly thicker than when it started. I gave it a bit longer to be on the safe side and then decanted it into some jars I'd sterilised in the oven.

I poured the jam into a jug and filled the jars from that as if I didn't I had visions of having a very jammy kitchen. It seemed to work but I suspect a tool specifically for the job - like a jam funnel - would have been easier.

Then it was time to add some labels and leave it to cool. It seems I needed have worried about reaching the setting point as later on I tipped the jars upside down to see if they'd set. There was no movement, which was a good thing. But now I'm (mildly) worried that they've set like rubber!

Either way I'm pretty sure they'll taste scrummy if the tasting from the spoon is anything to go by!

The verdict

This was easy to prepare and cook and I'm hoping the results match up to the smells that filled my kitchen!
The recipe says this makes 1.2kg of jam - my output was these two jars - I thought there'd be more. I guess if I hadn't've strained the fruit there would be more.
Straining the jam was less fuss than I expected, and something I'd do again.
Saving all those old jars throughout the year definitely pays off in autumn!