What do you do when your friend Jan gives you a 20 litre bucket full of cherries of various grades for free?
Well you spend an hour sorting through them, keeping the split ones for jam, and the good ones for eating. Unfortunately, all of the rotten ones, which was about a quarter of the bucket, went in the compost bin. Such a shame.
So on to the jam making. Here is about 1.5kg of cherries that were water damaged, with just splits in them that had not turned rotten yet. They still tasted very nice.
So here was my little system to pit them. One small bowl for the pits and stems, One medium bowl for the halves and a very sharp little knife.
So here is the recipe and method which I adopted from the back of the Jamsetta packet:
Gav’s Cherry Jam.
Ingredients.
1kg washed and pitted cherries
1kg white sugar (warmed)
50 gm packet of Jamsetta (pectin)
4 tablespoons of Lemon Juice
1 quarter cup water1. Place the cherries in a large saucepan and mash with a potato masher to release the juices. Add the water and lemon juice and cook gently, uncovered until the fruit is soft.
Note: the pan should be large enough so that the fruit and sugar should not occupy greater the 1/3 of the pan’s capacity. It increases in volume when it boils.
2. Add the Jamsetta and warmed sugar (place in an oven proof bowl in a oven @150C for 6 minutes), heat gently until dissolved, stirring constantly. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
3. To test for a set. Place a saucer in the freezer for 5 minutes, remove. Place a level teaspoon of jam on the saucer and leave for 30 seconds. Run finger through jam and if set, it should crinkle. If not boil for a further 3 minutes and test again. My jam set at 13 minutes boiling.
4. Once gel point is achieved, remove jam from heat and stand for 10 minutes. Pour into sterilised, warm, dry jars and seal.
ooh, yum, that looks delish!
traditionally their were 3 types of cider, apple, pear and cherry. Wouldnt mind a glass full of that.
Homemade cherry jam…YUM! Looks pretty good.
Cherry Jam what a treat..I am interested in knowing do you reuse al your jar lids or to you buy new??
yes it is very yummy indeed.
FG67, I scrubbed the the existing lids and boiled them. All of the lids had pop tops and sealed well.
Gav
What to do when a friend gives you a 20 litre bucket full of cherries? Be very, very happy, for starters. Enjoy that beautiful cherry jam.
I also made cherry jam as my fruit had also split from all the rain. I had 1.8kg of damaged fruit (after pips were removed) and made 8 jars of the most amazing jam i jam ever eaten. Can wait to do it again next season. I mow waiting on my nectarines to ripen so i can make more jam.
A fully thing hapened this evening Jan the cherry fairy also paid me a visit with buckets of cherries, guess what im doing tomorrow.
@ Lanie,
I am very, very happy! I have over 20 jars of cherry jam now and love it on toast.
@ Sharon.
Are you local? She is a wonderful Cherry fairy, but never thought of Jan like that. I will have to let her know next time I see her!
Gav x
@ Gavin, yes local in the Marsh, secretary of the poultry club