Blackberry Jelly
(Makes 5 half-pints)

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To ensure a good set, avoid overripe berries, and include some that aren’t quite ripe yet. I prefer to render blackberry juice with a steam juicer, but you can certainly extract your juice the traditional way: Mash 4 pounds berries in a kettle, simmer them, covered, with 3/4 cup water until they are soft (about 10 minutes), and then let the juice drip through a damp jelly bag for 8 to 12 hours. With either method, you’ll need about 4 pounds blackberries to make 4 cups juice.

4 cups blackberry juice
3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons strained lemon juice

1. Heat the blackberry juice, sugar, and lemon juice together in a preserving pan over medium heat, stirring gently, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Raise the heat to medium-high, and boil the mixture until it passes the spoon test, skimming the foam as needed.

2. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and ladle the jelly into half-pint mason jars. Add lids and rings, and process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.