This cherry butter ended up a little more tart than I’d like, but the caramelized cherry essence is divine. I was surprised to see how it looked like molasses in the end. I could not help but sing this song when smelling it.
- 6 pounds cherries, pitted and halved*
- 3 cinnamon stiks
- 4-5 cardamon pods
- 7-9 C of sugar (we put in 7, and it needed some more)
- juice of 1 medium lemon (1 T)
- 1 t of ground cinnamon
- splash of kirsh (for the cherries, not the cook, but saucing the cook is ok…)
- cheese cloth / muslin bag
- crock pot
- immersion blender
- 21 quarter pint jars
- Put spices in cheese cloth / muslin bag.
- Cover the cherries with water and simmer with the whole spices. Cook 20-25 min
- Remove whole spices.
- Puree until smooth.
- Pour into crock pot. Any left over should be used as cherry syrup. We only took out 1/2 pint and it could have been 1 pint. The crock pot was pretty full.
- Turn on the crock pot and let it thicken to half it’s volume. Stir often to let steam out. We let it go for about 20 hours, sometimes on high, sometimes on low. It looked like molasses in the end.
- Water bath can it, process for 8 minutes. We were lucky enough to have another canner in the house at the time, so we doubled the mesh. That worked perfectly to keep the small jars in place.
Yield: 21 quarter pints + 1/2 pint syrup.
Adapted from Perfect Preserves.