S. KaethFirst wild black raspberries of the year!! (And a brat and potato salad and coleslaw)
The black raspberries that grow wild along our fence line are one of my many favorite things about our yard.
Monty Hayter 🇨🇦@skaeth Yum! We have a love-hate relationship with their cousins (blackberries) that grow on our property, and along the trails, all around here:
Love eating them, but keeping them under control so they don’t take over is rough.
@skaeth After a slow start, the blackberry crop is coming along nicely, a lot of super plump and sweet berries. 😋 Our apples are coming along nicely too — which means pies!
…plus visits from the local bear for any left on the ground. The deer will eat them too, but they prefer the crabapples in our front yard.
@montyhayter Oh my gosh, yessss!! Those look so good! Do you make a lot of apple pies with your harvest? What about blackberry pies?
@skaeth Sometimes - there's only two trees (planted by my grandparents >60 years ago), and we don't do much in the way of active maintenance on them. Some years there's not enough good ones – or enough at all – for pies and we mostly just leave them to the wildlife.
Blackberry: not usually, they tend to get eaten as they get picked, so it's hard to get enough for a pie 😆, and now that my dad has passed I’m the only one in the family (locally) that would eat them.
@montyhayter That’s too bad! I’ve never had blackberry pie but I love blackberry jam. I’ve never been brave enough to try making my own jam though.
@skaeth Blackberry pie is pretty intense — you have to *really* like blackberries. I like it but a little goes a long way (especially being diabetic — berry pies tend to be quite high in sugar).
As long as you don’t mind a jam that’s on the runnier side (compared to store-bought) and don’t need to store for very long periods, berry jams are actually pretty straightforward.
@skaeth This is a pretty good example — they’ve got other stuff in there, but mostly it’s just berries and sugar simmered until broken down and thickened: https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-triple-strawberry-quick-jam-recipes-from-the-kitchn-192446
Just make sure whatever containers you use are very clean. As noted in that page, glass isn’t ideal for freezing, but I’m fond of this style with the clamp-sealing lid for refrigerating (This one happens to be homemade bbq sauce):
@montyhayter Sweet that’s awesome! If I ever get brave enough to give it a try I’ll post pictures.
@skaeth Sadly the apples, while plentiful and photogenic, have turned out to not be great for pies – quite dense and not nearly juicy enough, and somewhat lacking in sweetness. (Most likely because of our severe lack of rain this year.)
Good enough for a tasty apple cake, though!
@montyhayter oh my gosh that looks amazing! I love apple cake!
@skaeth Courtesy of my mom who, despite being allergic to raw apples, is always baking stuff like that for us.
(Thanks mom! ❤️)
We did have to do a light infusion with a syrup I made though - Normally it doesn't need it as the apples provide enough moisture, but in this case it needed a little boost.
@montyhayter Way to go mom! What flavor syrup did you use, or just a regular quick sugar syrup on the stove?
I recently discovered apple cake and I was like "Where have you been all my life?"
@skaeth Apple cake is pretty great 😊
The syrup was on the stove using brown sugar and a little butter, apple juice (no water), and a generous dollop of this stuff for a little extra kick. Makes for a nice apple-y syrup with caramel flavours and just a little spice. (I left this one on the thin side, but cooked down until thicker it’s awfully nice on ice cream…)
@montyhayter Oh that sounds delightful! Did the caramel flavor come through in the cake?
@skaeth Not super strong, but yes 😋