 Seems like blueberries have come in everywhere and it appears to me that there was a really good crop. That is one bit of produce that flourished here at the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ digs. Neither frost nor drought seemed to have an impact and so I have happily frozen boatloads of blueberries. I always freeze my blueberries when they first start coming in because I never have enough to can right off the bat. I can them after I have enough, even after having been frozen. Also, this gives me some flexibility on when I can my blueberries, putting them on the back burner behind the veggies that have to be processed immediately. So today I decided it was time to do the blueberries. I usually leave a couple of gallons in the freezer for pancakes, waffles, scones and yogurt, but I can the rest for blueberry muffins. Yummy blueberry muffins. I know this sounds crazy, but I would rather use canned blueberries for my muffins than fresh or frozen. For some reason, the canned makes muffins light on the inside and crunchy on the outside, and they just color those muffins the prettiest blue! I can my blueberries in two sizes of jars – half pint and pint – since there are just two of us. I use the raw pack method with a very light, thin syrup that hasn’t much sugar and drain it from the berries when making muffins. This leftover syrup gets turned into a light blueberry syrup for pancakes by adding pancake syrup and boiling hard for one minute. You can also can blueberries by putting them into a piece of cheese cloth and dipping them into boiling water until you see blue juice, packing them into jars immediately. However, that method is messy, messy, messy. Yes. It makes prettier jars, but, heh, I’m not eatin’ ‘pretty’. Before starting run your jars through the dishwasher to sanitize or boil them and allow to dry upside down.  Add 2 cups of sugar to 5 cups of water. Stir to dissolve  Bring water and sugar mixture to a rolling boil and boil for 5 minutes. Set aside.  Use either fresh or frozen blueberries. I know that it doesn’t look these are frozen, but they are!  Place blueberries into the jars, leaving a 1/2″ headspace. Ladle the syrup over the blueberries, again leaving a 1/2″ headspace. Use a canning spatula or butter knife to run around the inside perimeter of the jars to remove any air bubbles.  Wipe the rims of the jars with a warm, soapy dish cloth to remove any syrup that may have splattered onto the jars.  Add lids that have been warming in water to the jars and attach rings, tightening and then backing off just a smidge.  Place the jars into the canner and lower into water that should submerge the jars with at least 1″ of covering the top of the jars. Bring to a rolling boil and begin timing to process for 10 minutes.  When the time is up, lift rack of jars to rest on the side of the canner and remove jars with canning tongs. Allow to cool. The lids will pop as they seal. The light makes these look red, but they are really blue!  OK..now for the blueberry muffins. I use the recipe that I posted for Strawberry Muffins only I use drained, canned blueberries. They are even better than the strawberries! Go check out the recipe! |
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Yumm! Blueberry muffins are great! Mouth is watering as I type.
(:D) Best regards…
Come on down, Hawkeye!!
Wish I could grow blueberries here. I love blueberry bran muffins.
I love your blog! I just canned for the first time. I canned apricots off our tree. I had trouble. I used large, wide mouth jars. I did cold pack. My water wouldn’t boil in my canning pot! It took two hours to get to a boil from 180 degree starting point. I left 1/2″ head space. I tried to get the air bubbles out. After they boiled for 30 minutes I took them out, let them cool, and checked the lids. All the lids are as they should be. My concern is the amount of air in the top of the jar. I thought there wasn’t supposed to be any air. I have over a half an inch! Is this OK? Are they safe to eat? I think this happened because of the wide mouth. I should have left less head space with that type of jar. Can you advise me? Thanks!
Kimberly, unless you live in the desert, I’ll bet you could grow some blueberries! 🙂
Brenda, so glad that you are enjoying the blog. And congratulations on your first journey into canning! Regarding your canning, I am assuming that you did the waterbath method since you were doing fruit, where you completely submerge your jars in water in the canner. Your canner should be placed on your largest stove eye and the heat turned to ‘high’. The lid then goes onto the pot. On a large eye on an electric stove it should take around 30 minutes to start a boil. From that point the timing starts and for pints you would process for 20 minutes and for quarts you would process for 30 minutes.
Regarding the jars, widemouth jars are my favorite to use. It is so much easier to remove the contents from widemouth jars. You were quite right to leave the 1/2″ head space because if you don’t, the contents will boil over into your canning water and the lids won’t seal. The fruit goes to that level and the liquid that you pour in goes to that level so that the fruit is mostly submerged in the liquid to keep it from browing and drying. The air that you are trying to remove from the jars before putting the lids on is the ‘air bubbles’ in the contents. Those air bubbles can expand and also make your contents boil out of the jar, but it is fine to have the 1/2″ of air at the top over the contents. That is what you should expect. That air space is actually a vacuum. Sounds like you did just fine to me! 🙂
Thanks for the informative reply! I did use the largest burner. My stove is old. My husband thinks it just doesn’t put out enough heat. I’m going to use smaller jars and my Farberware pot that is smaller than the canner when I do my nectarines. I just need to get something to put in the bottom so the jars are raised up a bit. The nectarines are ready now and they are yummy!
I’m new at canning and also very frustrated with getting the water to boil in my canner. I decided its the ceramic top. I also have a micorwave over my stove and its very combersome. Fortunately we are building our retirement home next year and plenty of counter space and a different style stove top will be on my wish list.
I enjoy cooking and “freestyle” a lot. I don’t feel I have the freedom to change the recipes until I have more experience but I am working on it!
Dannie, I would venture to say that your ceramic topped stove is your problem. Most canning info says not to use those types of stoves for canning. They can’t get hot enough because there is a sensor that shuts down the heating in order to avoid cracking the surface of the stove. Electric eyes or gas are the best for canning. Sounds like fun building your retirement home!
Our nectarines are just coming in too. That’s going to be a big job! 🙂
Brenda, I’ll be trying the gas next time. It’s free, while the pill is $350! That is because they have to have an anesthesiologist on standby when you take the pill. I am getting teeth cleanings every 4 months instead of 6 because I have been on one of the meds for osteoporosis and it has started depleting bone in my jaw. I have been taken off of it and they are hoping that more frequent visits to the dentist will reverse the effects. So anybody out there on one of these meds, Strontium is the answer. These other meds are bad news!!!