Spiced Blackberry Jelly
| Blackberries, | 1 quart | |
| Sugar | ||
| Water, | 2 tablespoons | |
| Spices (ground), | cinnamon | |
| mace | ||
| cloves | ||
The blackberries Adelaide picked over carefully and put in the colander to wash thoroughly by dipping them up and down several times in a pan of cold water. After they were well drained she poured them into a saucepan with two tablespoons of cold water, and mashed them with the wooden potato masher. Placing the saucepan over the fire, she let the blackberries simmer until they were soft, then poured them into the jelly bag to drip. To each cup of juice she measured a cup of sugar which she stood on the back of the range in an earthenware dish to heat through, but not brown, also one-fourth of an ounce of ground cinnamon, one-eighth of an ounce of ground mace, and one-fourth of a teaspoonful of ground cloves, which she tied up in a piece of thin muslin. The juice and spices were then boiled together rapidly for twenty minutes, after which time Adelaide took out the bag of spices and added the sugar gradually, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the sugar was dissolved.
When the "jelly point" was reached she skimmed it at once and poured the jelly into a pitcher. It was then easy for her to fill the sterilized glasses and let the jelly stand until cold. Next, Adelaide wiped each glass with a damp cloth around the top and outside, poured melted paraffin over the jelly, shook it gently from side to side to exclude all air, pasted on the labels and stored away the jelly in the preserve closet.
Mother said that this was better than any medicine.