Canning Season - Cherry Syrup

So, in all this canning mess, I'd never thought to make any fruit syrup from my cherries until I talked to my mom.

G-d bless Google. I found a recipe right away, and the proper method to get the syrup canned.

Here's how this will look in all practicality:

You'll wash and then sterilize your jars and lids, and get to making your syrup. Once the syrup is finished, the hard work is mostly done.  Put everything in your jars, seal, water bath for 10-15 minutes (depending on your altitude) and voilá, you have cherry syrup for pancakes or ice cream!

Cherry Syrup, J.Stahl 2013

This is good for a couple of weeks in your fridge, so don't think about canning it without doing more research.

Pop a comment down below if you've decided this is also an option for your family, and let me know how yours turned out!

Canning Season - Cherry Pie Filling

Cherry Tree, J.Stahl 2013

As you may have seen from my previous posts, we have a cherry tree outside and I had a great desire to try my hand at canning this year.


So, I got myself a slew of cherries, found a recipe for allspice, another recipe for cherry pie filling and got myself some canning sugar and jars. OFF TO THE RACES!!!


The biggest step that is the hardest, is allowing yourself to let the cherries soak for 24 hours. It goes against everything I have ever heard about cherries before, but you do *not* want the bugs that are in those cherries ending up in your end product. As much as you love life, make sure that you soak your cherries in water and rinse them out very, very well before you pit them and get to work!!

This is how your cherries will look once they've soaked.

This is a really easy recipe, though it is a bit time consuming. The water bath portion of the recipe takes 30 minutes. If you have more than four jars, you're going to be doing this portion of the recipe for a while. No worries though, it pays off!!
 
Since our canning sugar has the equivalent to "Sure Gel", I went ahead and skipped that step. I'd made my own allspice with cloves that hadn't been ground, so I had an extra step of removing them prior to adding in the cherries. No biggie! This is an easy step, and at this point you remove the sauce from heat anyhow.

Move quickly and then get the jars put together, and place them in the water bath. Find a comfy spot in your kitchen and enjoy this rest time before you start removing everything from the pot and allow it to cool elsewhere.  Enjoy your quiet time. I sure did!

Cherry Pie Filling, J.Stahl 2013

I ended up with four jars and a little leftover in canning the cherry pie filling.

I ate the leftovers. No one was getting their grubby paws on my pie filling while it was still hot. No. MY filling!! YUM. All mine. It was really that good.

So, if you decided to make your own and didn't want to share because it was so delicious; drop a line below and let me know how it turned out!

Canning Season - Red Currants

Out of all the lovely bushes in the side yard, we have three red currant bushes. I was quite excited when we moved in almost three years ago and found these lovely plants were in the yard. I had high hopes that we could do some canning or make currant wine or something with them.

As the last two years passed, it was pretty obvious that I was fighting a lot of health issues as a result of my last major glutening, and the ideas of canning had to be shelved for a time.

This year though, I remembered the currants and decided since we had permission to check over the cherry tree, I'd go ahead and check over the currant bushes. I picked everything I was able to find that the birds had not made off with, and netted about 4 cups of currants.

We'll be making currant jelly with these babies today.

I decided to mesh two recipes together today. One I read suggested using Kirsch Likör, and the other is alcohol free.  I will use about two tablespoons of Lörch Kirschwasser on top of the recipe I found from About.com.

Unlike other bloggers, I would like to ask you to check out the first link. It has some beautiful photos from France (I presume it is from France), and show you in better details than I could, how beautiful these fruit were on the bush. Unfortunately, our bushes are quite tight with leaves, short and picked over by the local birds and wildlife.  They wouldn't make a pretty picture at the moment.

As far as canning goes, this is quite easy, but time consuming.  I'm funny about stems, so I went ahead and took the fruit off of the stems just in case there were any rotten fruit left behind after being rinsed.  I came up with four cups of berries, which isn't too bad considering.

It takes about 30 minutes to can these, but most of this time is spent in either cooking the fruit and the long wait for them to drain through cheesecloth rather than the water bath portion of this. This only needs to be in the water bath for about 5 minutes depending on your altitude.

That's not bad really, is it?

• 2 pounds ripe red currants
• 2 1/2 cups canning sugar (this has pectin already in it here in Germany)
• 1/2 cup water

Basically, you cook the currants in water until they begin to get soft. Once that has been done, you'll mash the fruit and strain them. Once you've sufficiently strained the currants, you'll have about half of what you begin with. This is what you will be cooking with the canning sugar and canning into jelly.  It's really up to you whether you wish to press and get fruit into the jelly or if you would rather a clear jelly.  I'm not one to tell people what to do when it really is all about aesthetics.  What is aesthetically pleasing to me, may not be to you.

Red Currant Jam, J. Stahl, 2013

We ended up with five jars full of jam. We gave one to our neighbors downstairs as a thank you for letting me get down in the yard to find all the currants I could.

This should last us through the year. Not enough for years of preserving, but hey, it's a start, right?

So, have you ever canned currants? Or maybe you've made wine out of them?  Have you ever considered canning currants? If so, drop a comment down below and let me know what you did, and I'll definitely consider that for next year!

Canning Season - Maraschino Cherries

Ripe Cherries, J. Stahl 2013

As you may have seen from two previous posts, we have a cherry tree outside. I wanted to try my hand at canning this year.

So, I ordered myself some Maraschino Liqueur, found a recipe, got myself some canning sugar and jars and was off to the races!

The recipe I used is not alcoholic, but I'd read a few others and figured out that I can substitute the liqueur for the same amount of juice called for and it works the same.

My changes are below:

250 ml water
250 ml Bols Maraschino - Likör
8 ounces Sweet Family Nordzucker Gelierzucker 1:1 - der Klassiker 1kg
6 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups (19 ounces) cherries, soaked 24 hours and pitted

Before I get going with photos of the end product, I thought you might like to learn how Maraschino Cherries are made in mass production. Just click here.  Fascinating, isn't it?


Your first step is to pick as many cherries as your heart desires. The second step is to soak those cherries for 24 hours. Do not argue. There are nasty little worms in it and you want to kill all of them. They'll come out of the cherries and die in the water. Trust me, it's nasty as all get out.... RINSE and soak some more somewhere in the 12 hour mark.

Pit your cherries and put them in a large ziplock unless you will be processing them immediately. Wash and then sterilize your jars and lids in boiling water. Dry these off completely.

Follow the recipe and carefully fill your jars up to the top. Put them in a water bath for 10 minutes and place somewhere to cool on their own before labeling and storing in your pantry. Or, if you're really curious - pop one of these jars into your fridge and test them out in the morning.

Here is the end product:

Maraschino Cherries, J. Stahl, 2013

Let me know what you think!  Drop a comment below and tell me if you've decided to make some of these lovely cherry preserves for yourself!

Canning season - Cherry Jelly

Cherry Jelly, J.Stahl 2013

Our cherries have definitely become ripe, and I've decided to begin canning. I've done some canning before, so  I had an idea of what I was getting into. My husband however, not so much.

I'd picked about 16 cups of cherries (also known as about 3 inches worth of the bottom of a laundry basket) and had those soaking in water for 24 hours.  I don't know about the cherry species in the US and Canada, but I found out rather quickly that here in Germany, if you don't want extra protein - do go ahead and make sure you do this step.   There were lots of little worms that came out in this process.

I decided to divvy up our cherries once they'd been processed in water and pitted - and we've gone ahead and made jelly, maraschino cherries and cherry pie filling. I'll be blogging about that later.

Processing Jelly is rather simple actually.  Since I have some issues of arthritis in my hands and wrists from a couple car accidents, I decided to skip the mashing step and just process the cherries in the food processor.  I was doing this late at night, so I forgot to take a photo. I was trying to be quick and quiet.

The next step was getting some wonderful music going while reading through the recipe and processing everything.  This was very easy. 

6 cups cherry juice (mashed cherries)
1 3/4 cups water
1 (3 ounce) package dry pectin
7 3/4 cups sugar 

Read more here.

Canning Jar Lids, J.Stahl 2013

Canning Jars, prior to sterilization, J.Stahl 2013

While the jam was jamming (haha), I went ahead and started sterilizing the half pint jars I'd washed in the dishwasher.  This is a tedious step, but very worthwhile.  My husband hadn't ever canned before, so we traded off once I got lids finished, and he cleaned the lips of the jars.

We had a nice long laugh about jar lips at this point. We were having more fun than was appropriate!!


Our thought process went something like this:

We then quickly descended into asking "WHO WANTS TO COLOR THE LIPSSSSSS!?!"

TB, Dancing in the kitchen, J.Stahl 2013

So, at this point, I'm getting ridiculously silly and we're dancing to music, and my youngest came in to join in on the crazy, never realizing that we're actually working in the kitchen.









 

Once we had the water bath complete, we set everything up on a doubled up, thick towel - and voilá, easy-peasy jelly.  We've given a jar to our neighbor already, which I hope they like. It was delicious on toast this afternoon!

Finished product, J. Stahl 2013

Don't just take my word for it, give it a shot and let me know how you liked making your own gluten free, kosher, cherry jelly.