jam? syrup?

Last weekend, Mr. Painted Table and I headed out to his hometown to visit some friends we hadn't seen in a while.  On the way, we stopped to pick blackberries.  It's the first time my lovely husband (still fun to say!) has picked blackberries, and I had something special planned for them.

The next day, I pulled out the blackberries, the sugar, my recipe book, and all my canning supplies.  This was the day I would make my first batch of blackberry jam.

Well...

We got started okay.

Hubby has excellent berry-mashing skills.

Everything was looking good...

This is over half the kitchen in this photo. Close quarters when making jam.

And then...

It turned out to be syrup.

Let's pretend it's syrup on purpose.

Sigh. Oh well.  The syrup is still very very delicious.

Our issue is being able to find the "gelling point" when making jam.  When I use pectin, there are no issues because we can use a timer and it's not based on our combined inability to judge when to take the jam off the stove.

Do you have any hints for us on a better way to tell the gelling point?  The first batch of jam we made without pectin was strawberry, and we boiled it for too long and ended up too sticky and solid to even eat.  This time, we were so afraid of over-boiling, that we under-boiled the blackberries and ended up with syrup.

Ah well.  Just means we'll have to try again!  And eat lots of french toast with blackberry syrup! (Or maybe some buttermilk pancakes?)

xoxo