Cherry Jam For The Win!

It all started with some free cherries from a neighbor. I needed to find a way to preserve them and decided to make some nice cherry jam. I've made a few several cherry recipes which I will go into detail in a later post.  I think the jam came out pretty yummy. I've never made cherry jam before and I love the recipe for making this jam, and it only has a few ingredients. Cherries, water, lemon juice, sugar, and lemon zest. Oh and some patience and time. I love making jam because it keeps well in the refrigerator, and it taste great on an assortment of breads. You can also place this in smaller jars and gift them to your friends.

yummy cherry jam on toast

free cherries

when you have no pitter and you have to do this all by hand.

Cherry Jam Recipe

• Pitted Cherries ( I halved them)
• Lemon Juice (from 2 lemons)
• Lemon Zest (from the 2 lemons)
• Granulated sugar (there is a formula for the amount of sugar to use)
• Water

First place your pitted and halved cherries (you can actually cut up your cherries smaller if you wish) in a pot on medium heat with enough water to cover cherries.

add enough water to cover your cherries

add in your lemon juice and lemon zest. I cook this for about 30 minutes ( you want your cherries to become soft and basically mush able.)

the water will turn red, that great.

keep cooking and add in the zest

Once your cherries are cooked down take them off the stovetop and measure the cooked fruit and the liquid that came off of the cherries. (this is going to determine how much sugar you will use)

*note* you can not skimp on the sugar as this component helps your jam actually gel. 

Basically you use 3/4 of sugar that is equivalent to the amount of liquid+fruit measurement. 

Ex: you measured 4 cups of cooked fruit+liquid you will use 3 cups of granulated sugar.

Now you will add however much sugar compared to your fruit measurement and you will continue to cook on high until a gel starts to form.

It will look like a ton of sugar just add it all in

just let it keep boiling

The mixture will become very watery. that is ok just keep stirring because you don't want this to burn. 

A test to know when to remove from heat is the plate test. I take a plate and place it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Then place a small quarter size dollop on the middle of a plate. 

Place the plate back in the freezer for two minutes and if you can run your finger through it and it makes wrinkles it's done take it off of the heat. (hey while you are doing this move your pot off of the heat, it's always better to have your jam undercooked rather than overcooked (you can always put it back on the heat if it was not cooked long enough) ). 

Another test I like to take is stick my silicon spatula in the jam and see if I can make a clean swipe through the jam 

I then take it off the heat and I place it carefully in my mason jars, be careful it is very hot.

Cherries always foam, just give it a stir to remove that.

Remember it will look watery but once the jar is cool to the touch like a few hours later, I place the jar in the fridge overnight and in the morning you have yummy jam.

The Jam will be set if you cook it to the right consistency. I don't use pectin because cherry skin has it's own natural pectin as well as the lemon zest. 

If you find your jam not set feel free to cook it some more or use pectin.

This jam is so good you guys, look at those big cherry pieces.

everyone who tried it loved the jam, again I liked the big cherry halves, but if you are not into those cut them into smaller pieces.