Last weekend I went home to Cork for the Taste of West Cork Festival, which meant that I ended up spending lots of money on cheese, cured meat, chocolate etc! After a day of serious eating I went home to find ripe juicy blackberries growing everywhere in our area! With romantic memories of the days when my brother, sister and I used to pick them for our mum when we were younger so she could make her winter supply of jam, I decided it would be a shame to not pick some and give it a go.

Jam is ridiculously easy to make, and you can vary the flavours whichever way you like. It’s literally a case of just using equal quantities of berries and sugar. Blackberries are really ripe at the moment, and you can find them all over the country, so why not give it a go? I think its a nice little Irish autumn tradition! If you don’t have any blackberry bushes nearby, why not buy a carton of frozen berries and give it a try? Warning- you may experience blue fingers for a few days afterwards, but it’s worth it!

Ingredients:

1.5kg fresh blackberries (or you can buy frozen berries in any supermarket and let them defrost)

1.5kg sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1tsp nutmeg

1. Carefully wash all berries to ensure there are no creepy crawlies still hanging on, throw into a pot and mash.
2. Add sugar, spices and bring to a boil for 5-10 minutes.
3. Let simmer for 30-40 minutes.
4. Pour into jars. Tada! You’re jam is made!

This makes lovely runny jam, it actually freezes quite well. I made about 8-10 jars and gave away a few to friends and family to keep me in the good books, and I froze about 5 which I can defrost throughout winter for when I am in urgent need of blackberry jam!

I enjoyed mine on some French toast, but as it is runny jam a spoon on top of vanilla ice-cream makes a nice dessert too!