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Cornelian cherries are new additions to our permaculture homestead and I’m just beginning to incorporate them into my cooking. One of the simplest ways to use cornelian cherries is homemade jam. The fruits contain plenty of pectins and all you’ll need is a bit of sugar and lemon juice to make homemade cornelian cherry preserves.
Cornelian cherries are really easy to grow and they’re still grown in mass throughout eastern Europe, Greece, and the middle east where they’re eaten fresh or made into traditionally spiced preserves, syrups, and liqueurs. I think they taste lovely right off the tree, but I also love fresh black currants and homegrown cranberries right off the plant too.
In the middle east, they’re eaten fresh with a bit of salt to bring out the sweetness. For most palates though, sugar is needed to cut through the mild astringency in the fruit.
The flesh of cornelian cherries is quite soft, and I expected that it would fall away from the large pit after just a few minutes of cooking. I was sadly mistaken. After about 40 minutes of simmering, the fruits were still mostly whole and not showing any signs of breaking apart when I poured them through a fine-mesh strainer.
I used the back of a wooden spoon to mash the cornelian cherries against the mesh of the strainer, and they still weren’t giving up.
It took about 15 minutes of stirring and mashing to scrape the last of the fruit off of the large oval-shaped pits. They’re remarkably resilient for such soft fruits, and they really didn’t want to give up.
I started the pulp and the juice simmering again on the stove and added sugar and lemon juice. My first taste was just the syrupy juice in the pan and it was heavenly.
Later I tried a full spoonful as it cooked, with pulp and juice and the flavor was markedly different. The pulp of cornelian cherries contains the astringency, while the delicate floral flavor is held in the juice.
This time I made a cornelian cherry jam, but next time I’m going to skip the time-consuming task of scraping the pulp from the seeds and just make a simple cornelian cherry jelly. The juice tastes much better than the pulp, and I could have saved a lot of effort just pouring the whole pot through a jelly bag.
In the end, the cornelian cherry jam separates a bit anyway. The pulp doesn’t really ever incorporate fully into the syrupy juice.
A spoonful of the jam out of the jar shows little bits of pulp and quite a bit of syrup. If you taste them both separately I bet you’ll agree that the jelly is much more agreeable.
Next up to try is a cornelian cherry liqueur, which would be much easier to make. Just soak the fresh cornelian cherries in vodka for a month or two, then filter and add simple syrup.
Cornelian Cherry Jam (or Jelly)
Ingredients
- 4 cups Cornelian Cherries
- 4 cups water, (add more if necessary)
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 3-4 cardamom pods
Instructions
- Simmer the cornelian cherries in water for 30-40 minutes. Keep the pot covered to prevent it from running dry, and keep adding water as necessary to keep the fruit covered.
- Once the fruits are soft, pour them through a fine mesh strainer (for jam) or a jelly bag for jelly. If making jam, us a wooden spoon to mash the cherries in the strainer so that the pulp goes through but the seeds remain.
- Put the juice and pulp (for jam) or just the juice (for jelly) back into the pan.
- Add sugar, lemon juice and spices (if using). Simmer until the mixture begins to gel. Test the mixture on a plate you've placed in the freezer. Once it's reached a good consistency, pour the hot jam into prepared canning jars.
- Store the cornelian cherry jam in the refrigerator or process in a water bath canner. Process half-pint jars for 10 minute in a water bath canner, with 1/4 inch of headspace.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I have been cooking the cherries, covered with water, down for about 25 minutes until the juice tastes how I think it should. I have frozen the juice to store.
My question: How much juice should I use for the rest of your recipe? Basically, what would the ratio of cherry juice be to sugar and lemon juice?
I would try around 4 cups since that is the amount of water used in the recipe. You could also look up some other jelly recipes to compare the amount of juice to sugar ratio.
Hello,
I have a question about making Cornilian Cherry jelly. (Didn’t care for the strong astringency of the jam I made last year)
Once I cook and then strain the 4 cups of cherries in the jelly bag, How much juice should it yield?
I have a bumper crop of cornilian cherries this year and would like to make more than one recipe at a time. So I would like to know how much juice I will need to add to the lemon juice and 2 cups of sugar. And can I double the recipe?
Thank you so much for posting this recipe, in America cornilian cherry. trees aren’t well known.
It is not recommended to double jam or jelly recipes. It tends to affect the way that it cooks down and can cause gelling issues.
Worried about the 1:1 ratio of 4 cups berries for 4 cups water. Other similar cornelian jam recipes call for a 2:1 ratio, 4 cups berries for 2 cups water
I would have to see the other recipes to know the difference but these are simmering in water for 30 to 40 minutes so a lot of your water will evaporate as the cherries cook down.
Hello. After a decade I finally have a bumper crop of Cornelian Cherries. So I started poking around the web trying to decide what to do with them. Many commented on the difficulty of dealing with the pits. I didn’t find this a problem at all. Boiled them with a little water, put them in a Foley food mill. Removed the pits from the food mill with a spoon. Finished pushing the pulp through. Bingo, took five minutes tops. Made a nice jam.
That’s great. Thanks for sharing.
I’m a fan of jams vs. jellies. I like the pulpy, fruitiness rather than just sugar, but I finally broke down and got a steam-juicer for the concord grapes and made a number of quarts of juice for the freezer. I LOVE it as it is so easy to use. I put off getting it because, for the price, it’s rather a “specialty” item, especially if I were only going to use it for grape juice. I think it might do the job for the Cornelian cherries, too. Unfortunately, I would get the jelly rather than jam, but I’ll deal. Great presents, though! I haven’t even gotten the bushes yet. They’ll be coming this spring, although I have the ground being prepped with lots of wood chips. I love the idea of having so much food growing around me. I started a number of years ago…thank goodness, being it takes a number of years for trees to fruit; hopefully, the bushes won’t take too long.
Hello,
The astringent taste comes when the fruit is not ripe yet. They are ripe when deep red, almost black BUT also have to be soft to the touch.
You can try freezing them before boiling to get the cells cracked open so they will be juicier from the beginning
T
Please post a recipe foe cherry liquor! That sounds so good!
All you’d do is soak the fruit in vodka for a few weeks, then strain and add simple syrup to taste. So simple!
Excellent! Currently soaking them in vodka now👍🏼
Awesome!
Hi,I have tried this recipe twice and I can’t get the jelly to set. It has been runny both times, even with an added package of pectin. How many cups of juice do you have after boiling and pressing the fruit? I used 4 cups of juice, but maybe I should only be using 3?
The amount of juice really shouldn’t affect the gel if you cook it long enough. More juice might require more cooking. You just need to cook it until it starts to gel.
OK. Then how do you know its starting to Jell while its boiling?? I boiled until 220 •F which I thought was enough.
That is the correct temperature but if there is an excessive amount of liquid, the consistency will be affected. Here is a post for some tips on resting the gel. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/store/store_home_canned.html
(My) cornelian cherry jam is considered the best thing in the world by pretty much everybody who has tried it. This is what I do, which is a labour of love and stains my hands for weeks: I simmer my fruits whole for a while (at least 15 minutes often longer). Then after this is cooled, I pit them one by one, by hand. I often do this while watching a film, trying not to drip too much on the floor. It’s a big job, But in the end I strip pretty much all the flesh off all the pits. It’s like pitting olives. The riper and the better cooked they are, the easier. And actually I think it is less work and more successful than sieves and food mills and the like. Usually I homogenise them with an immersion mixer after for a silky smooth texture.
But if you like using tools rather than hands, you can try cooking them well and hitting them with a potato masher first…
I have also made a katsup – onions, garlic and ginger cooked then ground up with the fruits, plus enough salt and sugar. Very good with vegetable pancakes.
Good idea, I’ll try them by hand next time. It takes a good long while with the sieve, and I could definitely believe it’s easier to just do them one at a time while watching a movie. Thank you!
I got here because I make jam but I actually bought cornelian cherry preserves made in Armenia at my local Ukrainian/Russian grocery. The commercial product comes with the pits included and I was trying to figure out whether that was conventional. My friend the horticulturalist says that carnelian cherries would grow well in Northern California so I may plant and make the jelly. The commercial preserve is really fabulous. The brand, if anyone is interested, is Noyan.
Lovely post and beautiful pictures. These cherries grow near out italian house and I have never used them before. You have inspired me.
As a thought, you could cook them in a pressure cooker to help them break down quickly. That’s what I do with crabapples.
Thanks for the tip. I hope you enjoy them!