Have you ever made your own fruit preserves or compote from scratch? What could be easier than this Blackberry Compote with its 4 ingredients and mere 10 minutes of actual effort.
Berry compote just like this, my Blueberry Compote and my Raspberry Compote is so lovely in or on everything from cakes to your oats and breakfast and it also makes a thoughtful and delicious gift.
Recently I shared my recipe for Easy Baked Rice Pudding. It’s an absolute classic and while it needs nothing but a little cool milk to serve, I sometimes add some kind of fruit compote. It adds a certain zing that compliments the creamy rice pudding perfectly.
Table of contents
What Is Compote?
Compote is a preserve of fruit cooked in syrup and can be used as a topping or mix in for so many dessert recipes. Everything from berries to apples can be used. Compote is normally a chunky style preserve and spices can even be added to create different flavour profiles (I’m currently dreaming of plum, pear and cardamom).
What Is In Compote?
Normally fruit is cooked in a syrup of sugar, lemon (or other) juice, zest and often with some spices as well. Those first 4 ingredients are all you need for this Blackberry Compote – blackberries, sugar, lemon juice and zest. You can even use frozen blackberries. See more about cooking and baking with frozen fruit here.
Tips For The Best Results
- Saucepan: use a heavy based saucepan for best results. it will allow the heat to distribute more evenly. For thinner saucepans, just keep a closer eye on the compote so that it doesn’t boil or stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Sterilise your preserve jars: Just wash and rinse the jars, then place them upside down in a casserole dish (for safety) in a warm oven 180C / 350F for 10 minutes. Make sure to use oven gloves to move them around.
How To Make A Frozen Berry Compote
With just 4 ingredients thrown into a saucepan you can have a batch of blackberry compote ready to use as a quick breakfast or dessert topping.
- Add frozen berries, water, lemon juice and sugar to a pan over low heat and heat until it simmers.
- Simmer it until it thickens (around 10 minutes) then store in preserve jars.
The compote will not look like it has much liquid at first but the fruit will release some liquid as they cook. That liquid will then begin to thicken again and become syrupy and that’s when you have compote.
Variations On This Blackberry Compote
- Make it a blackberry sauce: Simply puree the cooked compote and use a sieve to strain out the seeds. Store and use in the same way.
- Strawberry compote: Straight swap the blackberries for fresh or frozen strawberries
- Raspberry compote: Straight swap the blackberries for fresh or frozen raspberries
- Mixed berry compote: Mix 2/3 cup of strawberries, 2/3 cup raspberries and 2/3 cup blackberries.
- Blueberry compote: You can even turn it into blueberry compote like this recipe
How To Store Homemade Compote
- Preserve jars: I like to store my preserves in these Weck preserving jars.
- Fridge: Tip the cooked compote into a sterilised glass jar and seal while hot. Store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks unopened. Once opened, use within 3-4 days.
- Freezing: Once cooled, freeze the compote in large ice cube trays. Once solid, transfer to an airtight container or ziplock bags. This way you can thaw only as much as you need. Thaw in the fridge overnight, or thaw in a saucepan or microwave if you want to serve it warm.
- Gifting: Make it the day before gifting so that it keeps for as long as possible. Don’t worry, it’s very quick to make. While still hot, seal it in jars and place it in the fridge to cool completely. Tie a nice ribbon around the top, add a gift tag and place it in a cute basket or gift bag.
Uses For Compote
There are so many ways to use fruit or berry compote and here’s just a few. Use these to come up with even more ideas.
- Dollop it over pancakes or waffles
- Place a couple of spoonfuls in the bottom of a wine glass and top with champagne or sparkling wine
- Swirl it through yoghurt and add some crunchy granola for delicious, nutritious breakfast
- Between cake layers swirled through buttercream or on it’s own
- Swirl it through softened vanilla ice cream, then refreeze it until firm
- Add to rice pudding, like this
- Serve as a substitute to jam for toast and scones
- Pour it over a cheesecake, like this fresh cherry cheesecake
With the festive season approaching very quickly, Blackberry Compote is a truly easy dessert or breakfast topping to have on hand and have it ready for all those festive desserts you’ll be devouring.
More compote and preserve recipes
- Blueberry Compote
- Homemade Lemon Curd
- Blood Orange Curd
- Homemade Strawberry Topping
- Homemade Blackberry Curd
- Fresh Cherry Sauce (Cherry Compote)
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Easy Blackberry Compote
Ingredients
- 2 cups frozen or fresh blackberries
- 2 tablespoons white granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients together in a medium saucepan.
- Bring to a simmer over low heat, stirring.
- Let it continue to simmer, stirring every so often for about 10 minutes until the juice has thickened slightly. It will thicken further as it cools
Notes
- I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon
- It will start with very little juice, then increase and as it cooks, the juice will thicken and lessen again.
- This recipe makes about 1 cup of compote
- Use this compote over ice cream, pancakes, waffles, cheesecakes, cakes, mixed through yoghurt, oats or rice puddings.
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8 Comments on “Easy Blackberry Compote”
Just a good, quick and simple sauce; better than anything in a store-bought jar. Grocery store fresh blackberries don’t always have a lot of flavor so this really coaxes out the blackberry flavor. I use it layered in my Lemon cake with marscapone cream. I save a few of the prettiest fresh blackberries to roll in coarse sparkly sanding sugar for the top of the cake. Pretty fabulous.
This would be gorgeous in a lemon cake. So happy you love it, Katie
Can the compote be frozen
Hello Lora, yes, you can freeze it.
Marie, love this blackberry compote! Dreaming of all the things I can spoon it over!
Thanks so much Kelly
I love adding a little of fruit compote in my oatmeal (which I usually make plain or even salty) or with a plain “vessel” like a toast or a scone (or even better, a toast + cream cheese + compote). And I certainly do love the idea of adding a spoon in a glass with sparkling fine – beautiful idea for the festive season!
Thanks Ben 🙂