Bread and Butter (Sweet) Pickles

When we retired, we downsized from our 4 acre place and moved into a smaller property, so we don’t grow a garden anymore. Since we have no garden, we keep track of what vegetables are coming into our local Farmer’s markets and produce stands so we can continue to do home canning and freezing of vegetables.

Come spring, our local farmer’s market begins selling the small 3 or 4 inch long cucumbers that work well for making pickles and as soon as we can get them we will make our annual 6-8 pint jar batch of bread and butter pickles.

I know of nothing better on a ham or pork tenderloin, turkey, roast beef or Cuban Sandwich than a nice crunchy crisp sweet bread and butter pickle

and I know no better bread and butter pickles than the ones the wife makes (If you can understand at times, just staying out of her way is helping - then with my help of course).

Here is how we did them last year and how we will do them this year. They certainly are tasty and here is how we make them.

To make 5 one pint jars of pickles you will need:

6 pounds cucumbers (between 50-60 cucumbers)
1 1/2 cups onions (thin sliced)
2 large cloves garlic (minced)
2 quarts ice
4 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons powdered turmeric
3 cups white vinegar
1/3 cup pickling salt
1 1/2 teaspoons celery seed
2 Tablespoons mustard seed

Start off by thoroughly washing the cucumbers.

From the photos, you will see we had nice small ones. When they are clean, dry them so they will be easier to slice.

We slice our cucumbers to yield 1/8 inch thick slices on our mandolin.

Watch your fingers when using a mandolin.

Place them into a suitably sized bowl.

Next, Prep the onions (thin sliced) and garlic (minced) and add them to the bowl.

Then add 1/3 cup of pickling salt. It has no iodine and probably no flow enhancing chemicals.

Mix the cucumbers, salt, onions and garlic thoroughly and set aside for 4 hours. The intent here is to pull water out of the cucumbers and then replace it with pickling juice and spices so they need to sit for 4 hours to pull out some of the moisture.

Ice is added to keep the cucumbers cool during the 4 hour salt exposure.

At the end of the 4 hour salt treatment, drain the liquid off of the cucumber mixture

and set up the pickling spices while the cucumbers drain. The pickling spice mixture includes vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery seed, mustard and a cinnamon stick.

Mix these in a pan of suitable size to hold the liquid and the cucumbers and then heat the mixture to a boil.

Once it is boiling, add the cucumbers, bring it back to a boil and cook (boil) for 5 minutes.

As the cucumbers are doing their thing on the stove, the jars are prepped - washed thoroughly to make certain they are squeaky clean and then air dried. We clean our jars in the dish washer on a hot cycle with heated drying. Works fine to do this.

The jars will be sealed with canning lids, with the old fashioned ring and rubber gasketed flat design. A sanitary seal for the pickle jar is critical if the pickles are to stay food safe for the year it will take us to eat all of them. To accomplish this, the dome lids are boiled 5-10 minutes to soften the gaskets which will seal to the jar when the rings are tightened.

Once the jars are clean, domes are ready and the cucumbers have cooked for 5 minutes after coming to a boil. Into the jars they go. Just spoon them in or use tongs. Try not to handle the pickles with your fingers (food safety).

Then the cucumbers are covered with pickling juice, which still includes all of the pickling spice seeds. It is ok to fill the jars to within a half inch of the top, but no more full than that, to assure proper sealing. The cinnamon stick is discarded.

Any spice debris or liquid is carefully removed from the jar sealing surface to assure proper sealing.

After everything is in the jar, the hot domes and rings are placed and tightened firmly (hand tight).

The jars are then placed in a hot water bath with water filled to the shoulder of the jar. The hot water bath is brought to a boil and the capped jars held there for 5 minutes

then removed from heat and allowed to cool slowly to comfortable handling temperature. The lid domes will "POP" when they seal. Any that don't pop should be refrigerated and consumed within a week or two.

The wife (MHNBPF) wanted me to write that all of her jar lids "Popped". To me (an old Microbiologist) that means she is a skilled canner. When cooled enough to handle, the jars are removed and allowed to finish cooling on a towel on the countertop.

The pickling finishes and the cucumber slices become nice crunchy bread and butter pickles after 24-48 hours in the sealed jar.

This is not to say they won’t only get better over the next few months.

Now you can make your own Bread and Butter Sweet Pickles and become a famous canner of cucumbers, too.

Thanks for reading my post and for looking at the photos.