Sweet Cherry Jam

Sweet Cherry Jam

 

Okay.  One of the things that I like to do is can stuff.  I've been doing it for years.  I grew up watching my MommaF canning stuff.  She grew up watching her MommaC canning stuff, and so on.  Things that you can yourself taste better.  I don't know why - it just does.  Maybe it's the little extra love you add when you know that your family will enjoy your stuff later in the year.

This week, I got a couple of pounds of sweet cherries and a couple of pounds of Ranier cherries.  Now, most recipes (and the recipes in the box of pectin) say that you must use sour cherries and that all measurements need to be exact.  Hmmm.  Whatever.  Here is what I did.

First, I pitted the cherries.  This is a pretty messy job, so I did it inside of a paper bag.

I had about 5 cups of whole sweet cherries and 5 cups of Ranier cherries.

Then I chopped them all up in my food processor, making 3 cups of each kind of cherries.  I added the juice of 1 lemon to each batch of cherries.

In a large pot I, I placed the 3 cups of Ranier cherries with the juice of 1 lemon and a package of pectin.  When this came to a rolling boil (that is a boil that doesnt stop when you stir it), I added 4 cups of sugar (I know, that's a lot of sugar, but it's jam.) and 1 teaspoon of vanilla (I use good Mexican vanilla).  When it comes to a rolling boil again, time it for one minute while stirring.  Take it off of the heat.  Put the jam in hot jars, place lids (that you have had in hot water for a few minutes to soften the seal) and rings on the jars and tighten.  I put my jam jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, then place on a towel on the counter to cool.  Don't place right on the counter because the temperature difference can make the jars break.  I know many people invert their jars to get a seal.  I don't.  I don't want to mess with the quality of a something that my family is going to eat.

I repeated this whole process with the sweet cherries, with the only difference being that I added a teaspoon of almond extract and omitted the vanilla.  This made 6 jars - 8 ounce each - of each kind of jam.

My son scraped the pot of each to try on a piece of bread.  He approved.