Yellow Cherry Jam Recipe

When life gives you cherries, make this Cherry Jam Recipe. Yellow cherries are perfect for jam making because they keep firmer. Top your French toasts, pancakes or crepes with cherry jam. It will become a staple at breakfast.

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 it 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.

How To Make

1. Wash the cherries, remove their stalks and stones. Put the cherries in a large pot. Then pour sugar on them and wait 5 hours. You can do this overnight. At the end of this time, you’ll see that all sugar is dissolved and cherries release their water. That’s why we don’t need to add extra water.
2. Put the pot on low heat and let it simmer 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.
3. 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 boiling the sherbet until it reaches the right consistency. If 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.
4. If you have a balcony or a garden, wait your jam under sun. This helps its consistency, 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.

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