Sweet Cherry Jam
I love jam. On toast. In marinades for ribs and glazes for chicken. Warmed up and drizzled over vanilla ice cream. This sweet cherry jam is a fabulous way to enjoy cherries as they come into season. Because this jam has a lot of sugar, I never bother canning it. It will keep just fine in the fridge for a few weeks—if it lasts that long.
This recipe calls for 2 pounds of cherries, which is about all that I can bear to pit in one sitting. And that’s just fine. This recipe yields just about 2 cups of jam…which is more than enough for me for a few weeks.
This is one of the few tasks that I actually wear rubber gloves for, to help avoid staining my hands bright red.
How to use a cherry pitter
I use an old fashioned cherry pitter.
It squeezes together like a pair of scissors, and has a long spike on one end.
When you squeeze the pitter, the spike skewers the cherry and pops the pit right out. (It also tends to squirt out a little cherry juice, so be careful where you pit your cherries.)
Sweet Cherry Jam
2 lbs. cherries, pitted and stemmed
zest from 1 lemon
juice from 2 lemons
1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups sugar
Yields about 2 cups of jam
Pit your cherries
Toss your cherries in a colander and rinse them well under cold water.
Heap them in a pile on the counter and grab a bowl.
Grab your cherry pitter.
Pull the stem off a cherry and set it on your pitter like this:
Squeeze the pitter closed, which will drive the spike through the center of the cherry.
This will send the cherry pit shooting out the other end of the pitter.
Put the pitted cherry in your bowl. Repeat with the rest of your cherries until you’ve pitted them all. (I think this took me about 20 minutes, maybe a little less.)
Chop half the pitted cherries
Once you’ve pitted all your cherries, take about half of them and set them on a board.
Roughly chop them up.
Put the chopped cherries back with in the bowl with the whole cherries.
Throw all the cherries in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot.
Zest and juice the lemons
Quickly scrape the zest off one lemon.
(You can zest both lemons, but I prefer less zest, so I only do one.)
Then slice both lemons in half and squeeze them into the pot. (I used a lemon reamer to be sure to get as much juice as I could.)
Toss in the lemon zest.
Give the pot a stir to combine your ingredients.
Simmer the fruit mixture
Set the pot on the stove over medium-high heat. After a few minutes, the juice in the pot should come up to a simmer.
Give it a stir. Drop the heat to low. Cover the pot and crack the lid a smidge. You want the fruit mixture to just simmer.
Keep a close eye on the pot. If the heat is too high, it can bubble up and over on you. (Take my word from experience…hot cherry juice is a m-e-s-s you don’t want to clean up.)
Simmer the fruit mixture like this 15-20 minutes.
After 15-20 minutes, the fruit should be soft and fairly broken down, like this:
Add the sugar to the fruit mixture
Add the sugar to the pot.
Give the pot a stir to combine well. Raise the heat and bring it back up to a simmer. Cook like this, uncovered, for maybe 6-8 minutes more.
As the jam simmers, it will thicken.
You want the jam mixture to get visibly thicker.
When you stir the jam, it should be so thick that you can see the bottom of the pot, like this:
How to test the jam for doneness
When it looks and feels thicker, give it a test. Dip the back of a metal spoon into the mixture. It should coat the back well, like this:
Next, drop a blob of jam onto a ceramic plate.
Put the plate in the freezer for a few minutes. When the jam is good and cold, give it a push with your finger. If it forms a skin and wrinkles up, like this, it should be thick enough to set up nicely.
Cool the jam and enjoy!
Take the jam pot off the stove and let it cool to room temperature. When it’s cool, transfer it to a bowl, cover it, and pop it in the fridge to cool completely.
Keep your jam tightly wrapped in the fridge and use up within the next few weeks.
Enjoy!
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30 Comments
Beautiful pics! I love cherries and this jam looks delicious!
Looks yummy! I have to say my favorite way to eat jam is on toast with peanut butter. Preferably homemade toast!
That looks wonderful! I love jams too, I’m a big fan of Blueberry jam.
Can I do the same thing with blueberries using this method??
OMG that looks like the best jam I have seen! Great idea with the tons of cherries we always get here in WA state! I know what I am making next week…Thanks Jessie!
This looks great.You always take such great photos to add with your recipes.
We are into jam.I am in to Cherry glaze on duck and my question is making this and then adding some balsamic vinegar to make the glaze would I need to add more sugar to make the glaze thicker??
Or will cooking do it naturally.See I like the idea of using a jam instead of just whole cherries on the duck.
Would love to hear your opinion on this.
Great article!
I’m with you, any excuse to cook or top things with jam, preserves, etc. and I will take it. Great post!
This looks great. I just got one of those cherry pitters from OXO (has a guard on it that prevents the juice from splattering)- and the cherries come out nice and clean. My 8 year old is asking me to make cherry recipes so he can pit all of the cherries for me. Will keep jam in mind!!
Looks so fresh and delicious cherry jam.. almost too gorgeous to eat! Congrats for the pics are awesome
Cheers!
Gera
Delicious cherry jam…in Portugal is the time of the year to found e tast cherry.
Kiss
Jessie!
Now you need me to make some crapes? Maybe for tomorrow morning and overnight them?
Just say the word!
Gabi
I love making jam, preserves and jellies. I just got back from Brentwood, CA. We went cherry picking, I might give this sweet cherry jam a try. It looks soooooo good
This jam looks absolutely delicious. Thanks for sharing.
This is now cooling on the back of my stove! The tastes I’ve sneaked so far have been delicious. Thanks for the inspiration, and the very helpful picture tutorial
Oh my goodness, yay! So glad you liked it! Pitting all those cherries is kind of a pain, but the results are well worth it, I think.
Cheers!
+Jessie
2 years later and I’m still making it. I use two limes these days (with zest of both) and skimp on the sugar. totally a favorite
Many thanks for this – exactly what I was looking for! I picked a kg of wild cherries this morning (what a find!) and want to make jam. I love the way you illustrate every step of your recipe with photos – so helpful.
This is cooling on my stove and looks delicious. I did find I needed to cook it 40 min after adding the sugar to get it thick. Maybe because I doubled the recipe and only used the minimal amount of sugar. (3 cups) I have a Norpro cherry stoner that has an automatic feed tray and catch hopper that really makes short work of the pitting process. It was only $20. I highly recommend it. Thanks for the inspiration.
Hi Ginger!
So glad you liked it! It definitely took you longer to cook because you changed the ratio of sugar to cherries. That said, I’m glad it turned out well! And I’ve been eyeing one of those cherry stoners you mentioned. I may have to pick one up.
Cheers!
+Jessie
The more likely reason for the longer cooking time is the amount of humidity in the air. Here in Missouri, it took me about an hour to condense the mixture down to the proper thickness. Rather than a true simmer, I kept the mixture at a low boil, stirring constantly. The results were wonderfully thick with a concentrated black cherry flavor that reminded me of the cherry preserves my grandmother used to make. Now, if I could only find the secret to her luscious Peach preserves.
Hmmm, that’s an interesting thought about the humidity. :/ I wonder…
Hey, my mom has a fabulous peach jam recipe. If I can get her to share it, I’ll make some for you when peaches are in season.
Cheers!
+Jessie
Ours ended up too think and too lemony with half the jiuce.
Not our favorite recipe.
Hmmm, did you do the freezer test on your batch? Because if it wound up too thick, I’d wager you cooked it too long.
As for the lemon juice, that’s a subjective thing. I like how the tartness of the lemon balances out the sweetness of the jam. But everyone’s palate is a little different. Sorry you didn’t like it.
+Jessie
Is there a reason that the jam needs to be kept in the fridge? I would have thought that the amount of sugar would act as a preservative. Also the jars would have been sterilised I would think.
Hey Chris,
You have to keep it in the fridge because it’s not properly canned in a water bath. I never bother canning it because it’s a relatively small batch of jam, and there’s more than enough sugar to keep it in the fridge for a few weeks. But you could certainly can it–and like you said, if you did that, you’d need to sterilize the jars.
Cheers!
+Jessie
Here in Missouri, it took me about an hour to condense the mixture down to the proper thickness. Rather than a true simmer, I kept the mixture at a low boil, stirring constantly.
A really well produced recipe. We made a scaled up version – 8kg of pitted cherries with 5kg of sugar. It took quite a while to reach set but was good in the end and the taste made it worthwhile! If I could make a sugestion though, could you give metric equivalents, we Europeans have great difficulty converting from cups to kilos.
Wow, this is a great how to recipe. We picked, no joke, 20 pounds of cherries yesterday. My kids and I are a little extreme about our cherry love. We have an orchard nearby that grows a variety called “coral champagne”. They are rare and are the most amazing cherries I have ever had. We mostly just live on cherries for three weeks when they are in season. So looking forward to extending the love with preserves, thanks!