With over 6-pounds of fresh cucumbers picked from our garden I decided to put them up, meaning, I wanted to preserve them for the year. I found the Sweet Pickle Spears recipe on page 51 located in the fresh pack pickled foods & chutneys section of the Ball Blue Book guide to preserving. The recipe called for 4 pounds of cucumbers, I had 6.6-lbs. on hand, so I needed to adjust the ingredient quantities to match the extra cucumbers I wanted to process.
The recipe that follows is modified from the one found in the book, with an original yield of about 10 half-pint jars. To put up the 6.6-lbs. of cucumbers I used 6 1-quart jars. My cucumbers were much longer than those called for in the recipe, so I cut them in half to approximate the 3- to 4-inch requirement.
I first cut each cucumber in half lengthwise, then cut those halves into thirds lengthwise, then cut each of those long spears in half, yielding 12 spears per cucumber.
Yield: 10 half-pints
| Ingredients | |
| 4 pounds | 3- to 4-inch cucumbers, cut lengthwise into spears |
| 4 cups | granulated sugar |
| 3 1/4 cups | white vinegar |
| 3 tablespoons | canning salt |
| 1 tablespoon | pickling spice |
| 4 teaspoons | celery seed |
| 4 teaspoons | turmeric |
| 2 teaspoons | mustard seed |
- Cover cucumber spears with boiling water; let stand for 2 hours. Drain.
- Combine remaining ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring until sugar and salt are dissolved.
- Pack drained cucumber spears into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Ladle hot liquid over cucumbers leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece lids and screw top bands.
- Process in boiling-water bath for 10 minutes. Turn off heat, remove lid and allow jars to sit in hot water another 10 minutes. Remove jars and place on a kitchen towel lined countertop, allow jars to cool to room temperature, or 24-hours. Remove screw tops and wipe down lids and inside screw top bands, finger tighten bands back onto jars and label with name of the product “Sweet Pickle Spears” and the date processed.
