I hope everyone is healthy and doing great :)

Since I am crazy about fruits, many of my friends are surprised when they discover that I don't like blackberries, at least not to eat them fresh or in smoothies. It was a fact that I wouldn't make it in time for the weekly -#qurator contest which ingredient was berries this time, but I was already tasting the jam in my mouth, so I had to make it.

Just yesterday I had gone out to buy the longed-for berries but only got these frozen blackberries...which by the way were really red. Then I went out for an afternoon bike ride and passed by a store where there were some beautiful strawberries and I said to myself that I couldn't help but take at least a handful home. Now I had blackberries and strawberries.

...In between runs, I managed to make a jam with frozen blackberries, ripe mango pulp and cane honey to fill homemade bread. I usually make this bread which looks like a flower for my nephews and put different fillings inside each petal; this time I alternated the jam filling with fresh strawberries, cinnamon and cane sugar.

This is Mrs. Blackberry & Mango Jam:

For the blackberry and ripe mango jam:

• 150 grams of blackberries, washed and without leaves
• 1/2 cup of cane honey
• 300 grams of ripe mango pulp
• 3 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1/5 teaspoon salt

I took a few mangoes from our yard and got started by washing the blackberries; they still had their leaves and I discovered that they were quite dirty and mistreated. It wasn't a good deal after all, but I couldn't find fresh ones.

I managed to use half of them.

I took a large pot, to prevent the sizzling from dirtying the stove, and poured in the blackberries, cane honey, lemon juice and salt.

Lemon juice is essential. It will make your jam thicker and will also give it a very provocative shine, not to mention that it helps its preservation :D

...I brought this mixture to simmer over low heat while I prepared the mango pulp.

I simply peeled the mangoes and removed as much of the pulp as I could with the help of a knife. Then I mashed it with a fork. Now it was ready to be added into the cooking pot.

It had been boiling for about 10 minutes. I added the mango pulp and kept stirring from time to time to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pot. This I let cook for another 10 minutes and removed from the heat for it to cool.

When the jam was not so hot, I passed it through a strainer to remove the blackberry seeds and the bagasse from the mango (you could leave them).

I didn't have to worry about the foam that usually forms on the surface and that we remove to prevent the jam from fermenting, since I only wanted this jam for the bread I was going to fill.

It turned out very thick and with an incredible color. It was also very tasty; I discovered that I love this blackberry and mango jam. I'll surely make it again :)

And now let me tell you about the homemade bread. It's an easy process and it turns out soft and sweet.

Bread dough:

To make the bread, I made a pre-ferment with

• ¾ cup warm water
• ¼ cup creamy coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 1 cup all-purpose wheat flour
• 4 tablespoons cane sugar

I let this ferment for 30 minutes.

Then I added

• 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary
• 1 tablespoon of black sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons corn oil

I kneaded this mixture inside the same bowl where the preferment was x 6 minutes approx.

1. Once the dough was coming off my fingers, I added

• 2 tablespoons of margarine

And I kneaded again inside the same bowl x 2 or 3 minutes, until the margarine was completely integrated.

Assembling the bread:

1. With the help of a rolling pin, I rolled out the dough as if it were for a pizza, until it was a little less than a centimeter thick. The dough is rolled out to approx. 40 cm.

1. With the help of a little bowl, I cut a circle in the middle and divided the dough into 6 equal parts with the help of a pizza cutter (could be 8 or 10 parts).

2. I rubbed with margarine, sprinkled some cane sugar and put the fillings alternately.

I used strawberries, ground cinnamon and cane sugar for an alternative filling. I simply cut the strawberries into pieces of approx. 1 cm and mixed them with 2 tablespoons of cane sugar and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

I closed each piece.

1. I arranged the stuffed pieces like a flower in a baking pan greased with enough margarine (so that the bread does not stick to the pan, even if some of the filling came out, which is very likely to happen when these have liquids in them).

Baking the bread:

1. I preheated the oven to 300°F and let the bread bake for 30 minutes.

2. At 35 minutes, I took the bread out and brushed it with a solution of cane honey and coconut milk and sprinkled black sesame seeds. I then returned the bread to the oven for another 10 minutes.

1. The bread can be easily unmolded after 10 minutes. It is important not to leave it in the pan or the steam between the crust and the baking pan will ruin it.

Enjoy!

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY(https://giphy.com/create/gifmaker) for all them.