Yellow Cherry Jam
Sari Kiraz Receli
Do you love cherries as much as I do? I really don’t know how to describe my feelings when I see a cherry tree full of cherries. Whenever I see such a tree, I realize how beautiful living is. This may sound nonsense, but I don’t have the same feeling for other fruit trees. It makes me so happy to see those little red things between green leaves on a tree. I suppose that this makes the tree happy as well. It looks like a bride in reds. Have I told before that red is the color of brides and newly married women in our culture? I think I love seeing cherry trees much more than eating cherries.
I would witness how cherry trees blossommed and then fruited as a child when we visited my grandma. There were immense cherry yards in the village she was living and I remember watching these yards with a great admiration. It is such a village that nobody has to get permission to get into someone’s yard and to taste some cherries, so we would enter one, taste some and then enter another to taste a different species of cherry. Grandma also had a cherry tree in her backyard where we (my cousins and I) enjoyed a lot. We would climb on the tree, which was my favorite method to taste fruits, and would chat there eating cherries. The funniest thing I remember is that we, as girls, would make ear rings from cherries by hanging them on our ears. We would love to feel swingings of cherries on our ears when we shake our heads. Would you do the same thing when you were children?
Besides their wonderful taste and beauty, it is known that cherries also have healing effects. It is known that they are more effective as painkillers than an aspirin. So if you have bad headache, please try eating cherries before taking any other painkillers. No need to mention that they are great antioxidants. Heavy smokers should eat cherries to get rid of the nicotine in their body. It also strengthens our immune system and our body against many cancer types. Grandma would also say that cherry stalk has many herbal effects,too. She would make tea boiling cherry stalks in water for about 10 minutes. She would say that this helped kidneys work well and cured joint calcification. I learnt one more thing from her that cherry stones keep heat for a long time, so she never wasted these stones. She would fill a heatproof bag with dried cherry stones and heat it in oven. She put this heated bag under my feet whenever I had stomachache. I’m always in favor of trying herbal healing before any medicine just like grandma as I believe that nature has all remedies if used right.
Cherries are mostly in various tones of red, but we have a unique species of cherries in Turkey, yellow cherries. They are so rare in our country that it is grown in few regions. I don’t know if it’s grown in other countries. It has a very limited season here, so if you see it at the market, you shouldn’t miss that chance. Yellow cherries are sweeter in taste, that may be the reason why people prefer mostly these to make jam. They make jam either from yellow cherries or sour cherries.
At the open market last week I had that chance and I bought 2 kilos of yellow cherries to make some jam. Unfortunately I didn’t think how I would pit them. In the evening, when I prepared the necessary cups in the kitchen and grabbed one cherry, I realized it wouldn’t be so easy to pit them. I wanted them remain as they were, but how? Believe or not, I spent great effort on scooping their stones. After some time, getting tired, I gave up and just cut them in half and easily removed the stones. I called mom in the morning and told my cherry adventure. She laughed at me and asked why I didn’t buy a cherry pitter. A cherry pitter? What was that, I’ve never heard such a thing! Gosh why didn’t I talk to mom a day before? Then she told me if I didn’t have that tool, I could use a paper clip as a hook to remove cherry stones. She claims it works perfect. It was too late for me! Oh wait! I’m planning to making jam from sour cherry as well when its season comes, I can try either of these methods then. If you know any other ways to pit cherries, I’d be glad to hear.
2 kilos (4,40 pounds) cherries make about 1 kilo jam.
Ingredients
-Â Â Â 2 kilos yellow cherries
-   1 ½ kilo (3.30 pound) sugar
-   Juice of ½ lemon
Wash the cherries, remove their stalks and stones (either with Oxo Good Grips Cherry Pitter
Put the pot on low heat and boil it until it gets thick enough. Remove its scum occasionally. To understand if it has the right thickness, drop very little jam on a plate, turn it upside down. If the jam doesn’t run down easily, if it’s a bit sticky, that means it’s done. Add lemon juice, boil it another 5 minutes and take it from fire. do not boil it more after adding lemon juice. Otherwise, your jam gets too dark in color.
If your cherries are too soft, then after it boils for about 10 minutes, take the cherries from the sherbet with a strainer and keep boling the sherbet until it reaches the right consistency. ıf you boil the cherries with its sherbet for the whole time, cherries will be overcooked and all mashed. Then add the cherries and boil them for a few minutes more. And add lemon juice. Let it cool.
If you have a balcony or a garden, wait your jam under sun. This helps its consisteny, so don’t worry if your jam is not thick enough after boiling, just wait it under sun for a few days. Do not forget to cover it with a veil to protect it from any insects. Then you can put it in jars and keep it in a place without sunlight.
As a final note, I!d like to thank to Jenn from Bread + Butter. She is so sweet to share her award with me, I’m so honored. She has a fantastic blog with so many delicious recipes. Go visit her blog.
So according to the rule of this award, I’m supposed to name 7 things about me.
1. I love watching movies
2. The last movie I watched is Knowing
3.I am interested in literature, I love to read novels, short stories, poetries.
4.I sometimes try to write short stories.
5. I always read before sleeping. Reading Zorba the Greek
6. I LOVE eggs at breakfast.
7. I hate cleaning greens like spinach, parsley or fresh mint as too much dirt hides in them. But of course I do that cleaning
It’s absoultely so hard to decide on just 7 bloggers to share this award, so I want to share it with everyone I’m in contact with in this blog world.
Cherries in Winter
Cherries always complain about the limited time they have. THey can appear just in summer and they can’t see the other seasons of nature. They wait the coming of summer whole year.
It is unfair! One day, one of them hided from people and didn’t come out until winter. When everwhere was white with snow, she decided to go out. She wrapped herself up not to get cold and wanted to ski on frozen hills. She didn’t know how, she just wore a pair of roller skaters and started. Luck was with this little cute thing, so nothing bad happened to her. But she understood the difficulty of winter and told her friends that summer is always better for them. (drawing by mom)
If you want more juice from a lemon, pierce it once with a fork and then squeeze.
Gera @ SweetsFoods on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 7:47 am
Oh goodness – I just saw the jam pictures and my tummy started rumbling….
First time I see yellow cherries, here I don’t have red neither yellow, so this is the reason how charming is for me
Cheers!
Gera
BeckRos on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 7:54 am
Look divine! I love unusually colorful fruits and vegetables. I just spotted purple cauliflower at the store this weekend!
Sophie on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 8:43 am
Congrats on your recent award! Well deserved!
Your yellow cherry jam looks so great! Yummie!
jenn on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 11:20 am
I haven’t had many yellow cherries, mostly the red variety. But this looks really good. Pass me some toast please!!! Heck, you know what…I’ll just eat it by the spoonful.
lk (helathy delicious) on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 12:57 pm
yum! I love cherries too!! And cherry trees make me instantly happy. they’re so pretty with all the flowers and then when they’re full of fruit they’re just amazing.
KennyT on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 12:58 pm
I have never tried yellow cherries before. They look spectacular.
Dilek on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 1:17 pm
Congratulations on your recent award! I feel proud of you.
And yellow cherry jam also looks yummy.
One of the doctors said that swallowing cherry stones heps our health. Do you know about this?
Diana on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 4:48 pm
Cherry Jam! How lovely, I’ll bet my daughter would love that. We planted two cherry trees this year. We didn’t have many cherries, but they were gone when we got back from vacation, darn.
I have a cherry chomper – it’s like a pitter, but it keeps all of the pits and juice contained – and looks cute too – which is why my daughter steals it.
Reeni on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 5:47 pm
I’ve never heard of yellow cherries before. How cute that you made earring out of them! The jam sounds so delicious – home-made is just the best!
Leesie on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 6:46 pm
Congratulations on the award, you deserve it!
What a great post and great information you shared here. I had no idea cherries offered such great health and healing benefits. I’ve seen sour cherry recipes all over the blog world lately, well, at least here in the U.S. – seems like everyone is making something with them.
elra on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 8:12 pm
Yum …yum … Zerrin. Sounds absolutely sweet!
Parita on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 1:38 am
We dont get yellow cherries here, i can try this with red cherries though!! look very delicious, perfect!
vrinda on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 4:54 am
Never heard of yellow cherries,u r lucky Zerrin,jam looks delicious,just perfect…
Erica on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 5:10 am
Looks absolutely delicious! congratulations on your award.
Zerrin on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 6:11 am
Gera- Yellow cherries are grown in a very limited region, that’s why they are so charming for people. I love mostly their colors when they become jam. So shiny, isn’t it?
BeckRos- Purple cauliflower??? So unusual! I love to see unusual colors of fruits or veggies, too.
Sophie- Thank you so much. It was wonderful when mom uses it to decorate a cake, too.YUM!
Jenn- Believe or not, I do the same, eating spoonful of it. I sometimes mix it with yogurt. Yum!
Lauren- Aren’t they so lovely? I take many many photos of those charming flowers on cherry trees.
Kenny- Thank you. I love this bright color!
Dilek- I’ve never heard that about swallowing cherry stones. It’s so interesting!
Diana- I’m sure your daughter will love it. How unlucky you are about your cherry trees! Maybe you can pick some next year.
Thank you for the info about cherry chomper. I didn’t know this one either. I’ve just searched it on the net, it’s really cute. I’ve never seen such a thing here, maybe I should order one.
Reeni- Every little girl loves to make ear rings from cherries here. And yes, home made jams are always the best.
Leesie- Thank you so much. Cherries have golden benefits for us, we should often eat them. And luckily yellow cherries are grown where we live, I adore their colors when they become jam.
Elra- Thank you. They are definitely sweet enough.
Parita- I can imagine how wonderful your jam will be when you try it from red cherries. They will have perfect color, too.
Vrinda and Erica- Thank you so much.
Faith on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 9:56 am
I love cherries, but I’ve actually never had yellow ones. This jam looks really divine!
Gail on Tue, 14th Jul 2009 6:39 pm
Wow – yellow Cherries!I have never seen or heard of these before. Thank you for the post – I learnt something new today!
feride on Wed, 15th Jul 2009 3:40 pm
I love yellow cherries, too! Jam with this fruit is absolutely delicious. We make the same jam in Azerbaijan and eat it while sipping at our tea:)
lisaiscooking on Wed, 15th Jul 2009 3:50 pm
I had no idea that cherries are effective as pain killers! So interesting. Unfortunately, cherries don’t grow well in central Texas, so the cherries at the grocery store come from other areas. We did have cherry trees where I grew up in Illinois, and they are lovely.
Carolyn Jung on Wed, 15th Jul 2009 8:33 pm
Wow, I’ve never seen yellow cherries like that. I’ve seen cherries with spots of yellow interspersed with red, but not full-on yellow throughout. So are these sweet cherries or sour ones? In any event, they look absolutely beautiful, as does your jam — pits or no pits.
A2zvegetariancuisine on Fri, 17th Jul 2009 6:27 am
Loved your cherry jam. You have an interesting collection of recipes, love your site.
Tangled Noodle on Sun, 19th Jul 2009 2:37 pm
The jam is beautiful – like little spots of sun! I enjoyed your childhood memories of cherry trees at your grandmother’s home; they add more sweetness to these fruits than any sugar.
Many thanks for this recipe! I’ve never tried making such a jam before but this looks quite easy to do.
And congratulations on your well-deserved award. I just watched ‘Knowing’ last weekend, too, although the ending was rather sad. By the way, soon you’ll have enough of your mother’s illustrations to publish a book!
vanessa on Wed, 22nd Jul 2009 4:14 am
That looks delicious!! I have never even heard of yellow cherries. Interesting!
Jenna Holloway on Sun, 26th Jul 2009 1:54 pm
AHA! Everyone thinks I’m crazy here in Washington State in the U.S. when I speak of my yellow cherry tree, with cherries that taste similar to apricots. Now I know I truly am right! My cherry tree is literally PREGNANT with cherries, branches drooping to the ground, more cherries than 10 people could pick in a day! Do you know if this recipe could be canned?
simon crabb on Fri, 31st Jul 2009 12:41 pm
Hi i live in the south east corner of england and to my surprise the old neglected tree at the bottom of my garden has produced a bumper crop of yellow cherries, i hav only lived here for a couple of years and last year it produced no fruit so u can imagine my surprise this year. the recipe for the jam looks great and will be giving it a go
Zerrin on Sun, 2nd Aug 2009 8:31 pm
Jenna- I was on vacation and just returned, so sorry for a late reply. As you say, you’re not alone knowing yellow cherries. You’re so lucky to have its tree full of cherries. You asked if yellow cherry jam could be canned. Actually, if you put the jam in glass jars and put the jars in a dark and dry place, you can keep it for months.
Rachelle on Thu, 6th Aug 2009 7:29 pm
I love your stories about cherries. I really am going to try them for headaches.
gastroanthropologist on Tue, 11th Aug 2009 8:15 am
A cherry tree full of cherries really is a gorgeous site. I just got some great pictures last week when I went to a wedding in Northern Wisconsin. they have lots of sour cherries up there. love the cherry pies and jam…