Icicle Pickles

As the cucumbers continued to thrive in my garden through August, I continued to build on my pickle making resume, trying, again for the first time, Icicle Pickles.  These pickles always have and probably always will remind me of my Grandma.  Mom never really made Icicle Pickles, but Grandma always did  (and still does, despite the fact that she is starting to have memory issues).  Every time there was a family dinner of any kind at Papa and Grandma's house, you could count on their being a big dish of Icicle Pickles on the table.

I hadn't really thought about making Icicle Pickles because I didn't really know anything about the process, except that they took days, possibly even weeks to make.  And the only reason I knew this much was because I remembered Grandma sending us to the basement day after day with a big wooden spoon to stir the icicle pickles in the crock.  So, I hadn't even entertained the thought of icicle pickles because I like things with immediate results and I didn't have a crock to make them in.  Then one day, my friend, Renelle, mentioned on Facebook that she'd spent the afternoon bottling Icicle Pickles with her mom and I suddenly had an urge to make some.  After a few comments back and forth on Facebook, I had her mother's recipe in my inbox and had found out that my mother-in-law had a crock that I could use!

On August 31st, I started my first ever batch of Icicle Pickles.  And yesterday, September 13th, I bottled them.  Yes, folks, it take 14 days to make a batch of these pickles!  Check your calendar before you start and make sure you have the time to commit to this process!  And if you have never had Icicle Pickles, don't let the 14 days scare you away.  They are a lovely sweet, pickle, well worth the time and effort they require!

24 cups of cucumbers, cut with seeds removed - Day 1

Cucumbers after 14 days of "pickling" . . . ready to be bottled.

Finished Product

As will most of my recent forays in domesticity, I modified the recipe to suit my needs, mostly because my crock wasn't big enough to hold as many cucumbers as the recipe called for.  Here is my modified version, with the original amounts in brackets.

Icicle Pickles

24 cups cucumber, cut with seeds removed (2 gallons - 32 cups)

2 cups coarse salt

1 tbsp alum

Syrup:

5 cups vinegar (2 quarts - 8 cups)

8 cups sugar (14 cups)

4 tbsp pickling spice

Instructions:

Day 1:  Cut cucumbers, remove seeds.  Place in crock, cover with 2 cups coarse salt.  Add boiling water to cover cucumbers.  Cover crock.

Day 2: Stir.

Day 3: Stir.

Day 4: Stir.

Day 5: Stir.

Day 6: Stir.

Day 7: Stir.

Day 8: Drain liquid off.  Cover with fresh boiling water for 24 hours.

Day 9: Drain liquid off.  Add 1 tsp alum.  Cover with fresh boiling water for 24 hours.

Day 10:  Mix syrup and bring to a boil.  Drain pickles and cover with boiling syruup.

Day 11: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 12: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 13: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 14: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil.  Put pickles into jars and fill with boiling syrup.  Close bottles and can for 15 minutes.

Thanks to Mrs. Oulette for her recipe!