Sunday, August 3, 2008

Making preserves with Flathead cherries

My daughter gave me several pounds of flathead cherries last week. They taste so good at first, better than store bought cherries . After my family ate their fill for a week we started to get tired of cherries. I needed to do something with about six pounds as they were getting ripe fast. I decided to make preserves and ended up with 12 ½ pints.
Here is the recipe I used. You can also use this recipe with most fresh fruit.
2 pounds cherries ( 6 cups) 4 cups sugar. 6 ½ pint jars Pit cherries and add sugar into large pot. Cook to a rolling boil for 20 minutes. Because my cherries were so ripe and sweet I only added 3 cups of sugar to 2 pounds cherries. I also had to add one box Sure Jell to mine. Put cooked preserves in clean canning jars and seal. This is a simple and easy recipe to use. If you have never canned before I would recommend getting a canning and freezing book by either Ball and Kerr.