So we spent this week doing some canning as cherries are in season. We’ve also been picking wild blackberries and getting those canned. We went to a blueberry farm and picked lots of blueberries but we ended up eating all of those fresh lol
We started with about 46 lbs of fresh cherries and I have to caveat with a warning that if you want to do this then it is well worth looking up some canning recipes online. It is awesome cherry pie filling (which is the recipe we started with) but we also eat it like a jam on top of bagels etc. we like it with more fruit and less clear gel filling so that when you make a pie you get lots of fruit in every bite and just a little of the clear gel filling. So we tend to add more cherries than the recipe calls for, and we make big and multiple batches! Now back to that warning…
If you work a job where your hands need to be neatly clean and manicured and pretty and clean???? Well… be forewarned! We started by pitting the cherries with a hand crank cherry pitter and found that it just smooshes the cherries and still leaves the pits in the bowl that you have to pick out of the smooshed up mess. Yeah… bad experiment. I recommend not going that route. Just grab a friend and a pairing knife and pit the cherries by hand, one by one, by cutting them in half and removing the pit. This also gives the advantage of looking at each individual cherry and inspecting it so you can cut out any bad spots that may ruin your canning batch by introducing yucky spoiled (and maybe some bacteria?) fruit bits. But in doing it this way you get a far superior end product at the same time as some lovely matte purple nail polish that is gonna stay on those nails for weeks! Yep, those cherries are gonna stain your fingernails folks! Don’t say I didn’t tell ya so!
So this post isn’t a recipe for cherry pie filling. There are plenty of those online already. But I do recommend finding one that uses clear gel. It can be reheated and cooled several times and not loose it’s flavor or consistency so it’s perfect for canning pie filling. What this blog post is about… most if not all of those recipes will tell you to blanch the cherries before adding them to the clear gel mixture! DO NOT THROW OUT THE BLANCH WATER. Here is why!
Those same recipes will tell you to add water to your clear gel. Instead of using plain water… use that lovely red colored and cherry flavored blanching water instead! It makes the pie filling taste better and look better! It’s sort of like magic when you do add the water and lemon juice that the recipes call for because the clear gel goes from light pink to purple to red during the whole cooking and canning process. But wait there’s more! But before I get to that… check out these photos of the changes in colors and how magic it is!
The jar on the left is lighter purple ( it may be hard to see in the picture but it is several shades lighter) and has not gone in the water bath yet. After 5 minutes in the water bath the jar on the right is a lovely deep red. How magical is that? Ok… so now I have some more cherry blanch water left so what can I do with that? Make some yummy cherry jelly of course! An almost free byproduct of making cherry pie filling! Yum!!!!
So here is where the recipe starts. The blanch water from any fruit can be made into jelly! But my favorite of those is Cherry jelly! When you blanch the cherries they leave behind beautiful color and cherry flavor BUT you don’t really have enough pectin to make the jelly set using traditional jelly making recipes. After lots of trial and error I have finally figured out the magic formula and now this cherry jelly has become a family favorite!
Recipe: So making the cherry jelly is very easy. Place 7 cups of blanch water into a pan and heat it up until it comes almost to a boil. Add two packets of sure gel. Then stir until it comes to a boil. You need to keep stirring constantly to keep it all from sticking to the bottom of the pan. As soon as it comes to a boil, slowly add and stir in 9 cups of sugar. Keep stirring constantly till it comes to a boil again and let it boil for one minute. Turn off the heat, fill your canning jars according to normal canning rules. Then water bath your jars (5 minutes for pint jars). You are done. you need to wait till they cool (and maybe even a day or two) until the jelly sets completely).
The secret to this process is using two packets of sure gel which compensates for the low concentration of pectin in the blanch water (versus using juice) and don’t be tempted to reduce the sugar or the sure gel amounts or it won’t set right. Jelly is one of those things that needs high pectin and sugar ratios to make it set. Blanch water has way less natural pectin and natural sugars vs fruit juices, so you need this high amount of additional ingredients to make it set. But overall it’s not as much sugar because you are using blanch water not juice, so calorie wise etc it should even out somewhat is my thought pattern lol. As a byproduct from making cherry pie filling, I spent less than $5 to make 6 pints of jelly and I doubt you can find a better tasting jelly at the store for that price anyway. So that’s what I do with the left over blanch water! It’s almost free! If you still have some blanch water left over add a bit of sugar (to taste) and stick it in the fridge to cool… it makes a great refreshing drink as well!
As a side note: I honestly don’t remember where I wrote down our cherry pie recipe from. But there are multiple recipes online. This one is very close to the one I use, but I don’t add food coloring, or and spices etc. I want mine as natural tasting as possible. But this is a good link to “Amanda’s Cooking” website where she has a good recipe that you can look at for ideas on how to get started. I want to state I am not affiliated with the other website and just referenced it as a starting point for you to do some research on a recipe similar to what I use. I like to give credit where credit is due to other authors 🙂
The whole point of my blog was to say… keep that blanch water and make some jelly! You won’t be disappointed! Waste not want not! You can do this with just about any fruit blanch water! So get out there and experiment! It doesn’t cost much to experiment and you might be surprised with the results!
One last side note: clear gel and sure gel are two different products. Clear gel is for making pies. Sure gel is for making jelly and jams. So make sure you get the right products for your projects!
Conestoga Chuck 