Canned Blackberries
| Blackberries, | 1 quart |
| Sugar |
These were great big blackberries, firm but ripe, and Adelaide poured them into the colander. She could not resist popping the biggest one into her mouth, but mother told her that that was a very bad practice to begin. Adelaide sighed, but she realized mother was right, so she stopped eating any more and proceeded to wash the blackberries. She dipped the colander up and down several times in a pan of clear cold water, drained thoroughly, then weighed the fruit. Weighing one-third their weight of sugar, she put it in an earthenware dish and placed it at the back of the range to heat through, but not brown.
The saucepan containing the blackberries was also stood toward the back of the range until the juice began to run, when it was moved forward, and Adelaide watched it while it came slowly to the boiling point.
For five minutes the berries boiled very slowly, then the warm sugar was added a little at a time, and Adelaide stirred gently with the wooden spoon, being careful not to break the blackberries.
They were ready to put in the sterilized pint jar as soon as they boiled up again. Adelaide filled the jar to overflowing, inserted a silver knife to bring all bubbles to the top, placed on the new rubber smoothly, sealed quickly, and stood the jar upside down, out of the way of any draft. The next morning she examined the jar carefully to see that it did not leak, wiped off the stickiness with a damp cloth, pasted on the label, then stored the jar away in the preserve closet.