Homemade Item: BLUEBERRY SYRUP

The other morning as I was eating my waffles I decided I wanted an alternative to maple syrup. I still really like maple syrup, but variety is what keeps life, and waffles, interesting.

So . . . I found a good price on a case of blueberries and set out to make blueberry syrup. Since I had no idea how to make it, I turned to the internet. Sure enough after a few clicks I found two recipes that seemed identical and used them as my inspiration.

Here are the links to the original recipes:

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/perfect-blueberry-syrup

http://www.simplebites.net/how-to-make-your-own-blueberry-syrup/

My aunt and cousins came to help out because canning is way more fun with more people. We started by washing our beautiful berries and then measured out five cups.

My cousin just bought this awesome pan. It was called a Jam Pan and had a handle and small spout for pouring. This thing was amazing! There were no drips, no hot ladles, and very little mess. If you are a canner, you NEED this pan. I found a similar one on amazon. This is definitely going on my Christmas list!

We placed the berries in my cousin’s fabulous pot with one cup of water. As the mixture was coming to a boil, we mashed those little berries to smithereens, and then let them simmer for a while. Here is what they looked like when we started

And here is what they looked like when we finished.

Meanwhile, we got some lemon zest set a side and some more water.

When the berries were finished cooking we poured them into a strainer to smash them for the juice. Thanks to the handy spout on the pan, pouring them out was super easy.

Using the same pot, we then made a sugar-water-lemon zest concoction with the lemon zest. The recipe said to rinse the pan out before adding the sugar water, but we didn’t want to wait for the pot to cool, so we just added everything to the pan without rinsing. It made the water dirty looking, but we were ok with that.

Next, we added the berry juice back into the bubbling sugar water . . .

And then some lemon juice. We thought about using the juice from the lemon we just zested, but this was a lot easier.

After that we just canned them and sealed them.

One case of berries made two and a half batches of syrup. The last batch we had to supplement the blueberries with some mixed berries we found in the freezer. Still very tasty!

Blueberry Syrup

Ingredients:

5 cups washed blueberries

3 cups water

1 cup sugar

Zest from one large lemon

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:

Add the blueberries to a large pot with one cup of water and bring to a boil. When the mixture boils, reduce heat to medium and let simmer for 15 minutes. While the berries are simmering use a potato smasher or the back or a spoon to smash the berries and extract the juice.

When the berries are done simmering, pour the mixture through a strainer into a bowl to collect the juice. Press the berries through the strainer to collect all the juice possible. Discard the remaining solid pieced of berries.

Using the same pot, add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil rapidly for 15 to 20 minutes or until the mixture thickens a little.

Add the berry juice and lemon juice to the sugar water mixture. Bring everything back to a boil and boil for one minute then remove from the heat.

Can the syrup or store in an air tight container or enjoy immediately!