Cherry Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Choose sour cherries, such as early Richmond, and pit them.
Sprinkle half the sugar over the cherries and let them stand for about 1 hour.
Make the syrup
Pour the cherries into a preserving kettle and boil slowly for 10 minutes.
Skim the cherries out and add the remaining sugar to the syrup.
Boil the syrup, skim if necessary, and pour it over the cherries.
Finish and seal
The next day, drain off the syrup, boil it, and skim if necessary.
Add the cherries back to the syrup, boil for 20 minutes, and seal in small jars.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Sour cherries
- Provide the fruit, whose tartness balances the sweetness of the preserves.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, helps preserve it and set the syrup.
The step that matters
Standing the cherries in sugar before cooking. Sugar drawn out of the cherries by standing dissolves into their juices, forming a syrup that helps the fruit hold its shape during boiling and keeps the preserves from scorching or breaking down too early.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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