British Bread and Butter pickles

One of the fun things we do every year at StonePath is to try and find some new canning recipe. Our criteria is to find a recipe that uses products that we grow (although we did do champagne blush jelly one year from complete store bought that was wonderful) on the farm.

Last year was the year for pumpkin pickles. They were a big hit and we quickly went through every jar we had. I don't count ground cherry jam because the ground cherry itself was an experiment and there's nothing unusual about the jam.

This year our pickling cukes are really producing so we started hunting for something other then the regular dill, sweet, bread and butter, etc... That's when we found British Bread and Butter pickles.

The recipe is a variation of regular bread and butter pickles as found in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

British Bread and Butter Pickles

10 cups sliced, trimmed pickling cucumbers

4 medium onions

1/2 cup pickling or canning salt

3 cups cider vinegar

2 cups packed brown sugar

2 tbsp mustard seed

1 tsp celery seed

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground ginger

1. In a glass or stainless steel bowl, combine cucumbers, onions and salt. Mix well and cover with cold water and let stand at room temp for 2 hours. After allowing the cucumbers to stand, rinse them well in a colander under cool water and drain.

2. In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, turmeric, and ginger. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Stir in the vegetables and return to a boil.

3. Pack vegetables into hot jars to with a 1/2 headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot pickling liquid. Wipe rim and screw on cap.

4. Place jars in a boiling water canner, completely covering the lids. Process for 10 minutes.