Simple Sour Cherries

Use perfectly ripe cherries to capture the flavor and essence of summer into jars. This recipe will help you make cherry pie filling or cherry topping sauce that can be used well after summer ends.

Calories 2135

Equipment

Mason jars – or other pint sized canning jars. Each pound of fruit will yield approximately one pint of simple sour cherries.

Ingredients

For every 4 pounds of sour cherries you will need the following:

6 Cups Water
1 Cup Sugar – raw white or cane sugar can be used.
4 lb Sour Cherries

Instructions

Prepare jars and canning pot for hot water bath processing. You don’t need to sterilize the jars, because you’ll be processing the filled jars for 25 minutes.
Combine the water and sugar into a small sauce pan and heat on low until the sugar has dissolved completely.
Increase the heat and bring the solution to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and maintain a simmer until you’re ready to use the solution.
Fill the empty canning jars with raw cherries – pits removed. Place a dish towel onto the counter for padding. Tap the cherry-filled jars firmly onto the towel in order to compress the fruit. Don’t mash the fruit down. Simply tap the jar until you’ve filled the jar substantially – leaving approximately ½” headspace in the jar.
Place 6 cherry pits into each jar, for a nutty and slightly bitter flavor.
Pour any remaining cherry juice from your bowl of cherries into the jar, and then pour the sugar syrup solution into the jar. Be sure to leave ½” headspace in the jar.
Tap the jar onto the padded counter again, to release any air bubbles. Top off again with the sugar syrup if there’s space.
Seal the jars and hot water bath process for 25 minutes.

Nutrition