This is a recipe I use for any of the compound fruits, such as blackberries, raspberries, loganberries, boysenberries, salmonberries, etc. It won’t work with blueberries or huckleberries — you need a fruit with a soft enough skin to melt under low heat.
My method sounds persnickety, but it results in a clear, beautiful syrup. Use it over pancakes, in drinks, as an ingredient in a barbecue sauce, as a base for ice cream or sorbet — the possibilities are wide.
This syrup will store in the fridge a long time, easily six months — if you can stop yourself from eating it all that long.
Yields 1 quart
- 2 pounds blackberries, raspberries or similar fruit
- 2 pounds sugar
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- Pour the blackberries into a saucepan and turn the heat to medium. Pour the sugar all over the berries, but do not stir.
- Let the heat begin to break the blackberries before stirring gently, about 5 minutes.
- Stir every five minutes, just to keep anything from burning on the bottom of the pan. Let the blackberries melt with the sugar slowly.
- As soon as the syrup hits a simmer, turn off the heat.
- Set a very fine-meshed sieve over a large bowl. Carefully ladle out some free-run syrup, which will be beneath the floating blackberries. Pour it through the sieve.
- Keep doing this until you have all the blackberries in the sieve. Let this drain for 1 hour. Do not mash the berries into the sieve, or you will get cloudy syrup.
- Pour off the syrup into jars and either keep in the fridge or seal in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
- Oh, and the leftover blackberries? Mix them with plain yogurt and they are delicious!
