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Cherry preserves are made with basic ingredients and sealed in glass jars. Pectin and lemon juice are added for consistency and flavor. Pitting cherries can be done with a pitter or by hand. Skimming foam is recommended to extend shelf life.
Cherry preserves are a type of fruit jam or spread generally made with standard cherry preservation processes. These types of preserved foods are often made from scratch with a few basic ingredients and sealed in glass jars for storage. Different types of cherries can make preserves with varying levels of sweetness. Some cherry preserves have a tart flavor similar to citrus preserves, while others taste closer to that of cherry pie filling. Making cherry preserves usually requires the removal of cherry pits, although the rest of the cooking and canning methods are normally similar to those for preserving other types of fruit.
Ingredients for cherry preserves typically include water, sugar, and the thickening agent pectin needed for homemade preserves to reach the correct consistency. Some cooks use pectin with added sugar, while others find that this type of pectin makes a batch of preserves that are too sweet. Unsweetened pectin is usually available as an alternative. Lemon juice is sometimes added to preserves made with sweeter cherries to balance out the overall flavors.
Pitting cherries for canning can usually be done most efficiently with a specialized kitchen tool called a pitter or stoner. Some preservative makers like to cut large cherries in half and remove the pits by hand, although this method can sometimes be tricky and cause the ripe cherries to lose juice. After the pits are taken out, the cherries are typically cooked in a large pot of simmering water along with the sugar and optional lemon juice. The pectin is usually mixed according to individual recipe instructions once the fruit is sufficiently cooked for cherry preserves. An alternate method for cooking cherries for canning is to bake them on a baking sheet in an oven.
Cooking cherries in boiling water often causes a layer of foam on the surface. Experienced home canning makers often recommend skimming off this foam before the concoction is poured into sterilized canning jars. Foam left over in cherry preserves can sometimes result in air bubbles which can shorten the shelf life of fruit preserves and even lead to bacterial contamination in some cases. Cherry preserves properly stored in sterile mason jars can often stay fresh for up to a year.
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