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Blackberries!


ratbert

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Very soon we will have a couple of flats of glorious blackberries to enjoy! The first of every season's fruit is usually enjoyed around here, all on their sweet, flavourful lonesome - but before the berries arrive, I'd like to consider where some of the precious berries might be spent.

Could you share with me your thoughts on how best to showcase this fleeting morsel of summer in a baked desert? What would you bake if it were you? :smile:

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I'm not a huge fan of fresh blackberries......maybe I've never eaten good ones. They are always too tart and too seeded.

But I do like blackberry flavor. I'd puree it, add a little sugar and strain out the seeds then freeze. I'd use the puree in many ways.

About the only thing I bake them in is a raspberry and blackberry muffin. It's about the same as a blueberry muffin. Freeze your berries so they don't bleed into your batter.

Since your a big fan of BB how about using them in a shortcake. Stew some down so you have some juice with your fresh berries.

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They happen to go really well with peaches or nectarines in a crisp - perhaps with some pecans in the topping and bourbon creme anglaise on the side?

Also, blackberry jelly is very easy and luscious. Cook with some rosemary for some added interest.

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If you have a couple of flats coming and you're not throwing a big party where you can feed people these blackberries, I recommend you make blackberry jam. I picked a couple flats' worth of blackberries a few weeks ago and made a wonderful jam from them, which will allow me to enjoy blackberries even in the dead of winter. It wasn't hard, either.

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Puree it baby! Savor the goodness all year round from your freezer. I love blackberries since my mom had her own patch in the yard (she has 5 acres, so we had many types of things on the "farm" as I called it.). Mom would make awesome jam, but I am not a seed lover myself. I would make up blackberry syrup on the side for belgain waffles growing up. That combined with pure maple syrup was great. I am also a naturalist. Cobblers aren't really my favorite thing, because it usually distorts the true flavor of the fresh fruit. Tarts or creme chantilly are great simple additions. You could also mix raspberries and blueberries to get the well rounded flavors.

How about blackberry/clove ice cream?

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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The key to icecream is to fold in the berries once you have churned it. I would cut back on the sugar just a tad too in your recipe. Maybe add a touch of lemon and some zest to give it a fresh flavor.

Creme Anglaise - then - Chill - then Churn - then-fold in berries. You may get some streaks of purple color. I would cut the berries in halves. Maybe quarters if they are huge.

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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Blackberry & Apple ice cream

i just made this up (we've had an amazing abundance of blackberries in the garden this year) but it's delicious. Stew blackberries in some apple juice - you only need a little in the bottom of the pan and keep the lid on. ten minutes is plenty. Puree and sieve. Then add some sugar to taste - remember this is ice cream so it needs to be sweeter than normal but don't overdo it the tartness is key. Add cream. Put in machine. This is one of the best ice creams ever and avoids the problem of the seeds and the varibale sweetness of straight berries.

Of course if you make a custard you will get a slightly different (smoother/softer) texture - both are great but straight blackerry/apple and cream is hard to beat.

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The key to icecream is to fold in the berries once you have churned it.  I would cut back on the sugar just a tad too in your recipe.  Maybe add a touch of lemon and some zest to give it a fresh flavor.

Creme Anglaise - then - Chill - then Churn - then-fold in berries.  You may get some streaks of purple color.  I would cut the berries in halves.  Maybe quarters if they are huge.

thanks - what proportion of custard to fruit would you use?

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I usually eyeball it. To me if you call it Blackberry Ice Cream though it better be fully flavored. You may want to add a strained puree into the anglaise. This would make up the sugar content. Watch your anglaise to make sure you are not getting it too thick. Probably 2:1 anglaise to berry.

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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Fresh blackberries served with cream (not whipped cream) but a pitcher on the side so customer can add as much or a slittle as desired - the absolute best!

After that, blackberry jam, blackberry shortcake (berries don't hold up as well as strawberries, but the color and flavor is great!) or blackberry/peach crisp (a crisp absorbs the berries juices better than a cobbler).

As a kid, I used to pick buckets of them, growing wild out back, and sell them to a local jam producer. :smile:

Edited by NHCountryGirl (log)
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  • 1 year later...

i recently made a blackberry pavlova, which is now my all-time favorite blackberry treatment. make a meringue disk (i used a nigella lawson recipe that called for a touch of cornstarch and vinegar and far too much sugar), which you can flavor with vanilla and/or rosewater. upend the cooled meringe (so the mushier underside is on top), spread with loosely whipped cream and pile with blackberries. the tart berries are such a nice foil to the blandly sweet meringue and cream. it melts into sweet sludge after a few hours, so consume quickly.

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A Black and Blue pie--half blueberries, half blackberries, a little lemon, sugar and flour. The blackberries add a very nice taste and you get half the seeds.... I usually don't like mixed berry combinations as I feel the flavors of the fruit are too obscured, but with this combo in a pie I feel the whole is better than the parts.

Last summer I made a nice rosemary syrup-soaked polenta cake. Very nice with fresh blackberries and whipped cream.

I haven't made blackberry ice cream yet but I bet that would be wonderful. Nice too, to be able to strain the seeds out.

Frozen blackberries work well for smoothies--you get the great, uncooked blackberry flavor. My "formula" is:

some frozen bananas, blackberries, lemon juice, sugar, plain yogurt, milk and ice.

edited to add: I love the pavlova idea deensiebat; sounds delicious.

Edited by ludja (log)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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Blackberry-&-Apple Pie – one of the classics of English cookery in late Summer, when the hedgerows are full of blackberries. It will bring a tear to the eye of the staunchest expatriate. A year ago, I made Ken Haedrich’s recipe for Blueberry-Apple Lattice Pie, substituting blackberries. [Apple Pie Perfect (Harvard Common Press, 2002), pp. 84f.]

Put up a batch of blackberry conserve, thus to bake a homey Southern Blackberry-Jam Cake.

Use plums & blackberries for a less-sweet variation on strawberry shortcakes. Enhance the fruit-compote filling w/ Vedrenne Crème de cassis.

The flavour of blackberries also succeeds as a sorbet to accompany melon.

Top a glazed custard tart w/ blackberries & raspberries.

Make Blackberry Fools & Syllabubs. Or a Kissel – a tart, pureéd dessert of Russian origin, which is made with various berries and has a thickish consistency in-between a custard pudding and gelatin. Serve in stemmed glasses.

Serve them atop maple crème brûlée or, as Nicole Routhier has suggested, a margarita mousse.

Mix 1½ cups berries w/ 1 cup granulated sugar & 1/3 cup blackberry brandy; let stand for 2-3 hours; then stir into vanilla I.C. base.

Make a seedless jam and use it as filling for a walnut torte.

Bake a Blackberry-Lemon Cobbler using cornmeal in the topping and serve it w/ Peach I.C. Similarly, the berries could be added to an Apple Pandowdy.

“If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries I would give no man a reason upon compulsion.” ~ Shakespeare, Henry IV, Pt. 1.

"Dinner is theater. Ah, but dessert is the fireworks!" ~ Paul Bocuse

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Wow! All these blackberry ideas are stupendous!

I've been buying them since mid-July at Philly's Reading Terminal Market, and they're still going strong. It's been a great year for blackberries, as well as all types of stone fruit, which is why I'm partial to blackberry-peach (or nectarine) combinations.

Question: I just got an ice-cream maker (the 1.5 quart Cuisinart) and am a neophyte. Anything to making a blackberry sorbet other than puree, strain, sugar and maybe a touch of lemon?

Bob Libkind aka "rlibkind"

Robert's Market Report

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You could send me some if you have too many :biggrin:

I miss the Washington blackberries--I've been wanting to make a trip up there and pick buckets of them.

I like to make jelly, but also just freeze a lot of them whole for use later in the year. That always feels like a luxury.

My favorite thing to make with them is just a simple blackberry cobbler. Or a syrup for ice cream.

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