Canning Cherry Pie Filling
Tart cherry pie filling makes the perfect hand pies, and it's a lovely topping for homemade coffee cake. Canning cherry pie filling means you have it on hand whenever you need a quick dessert.
Servings: 4 quart jars (or 8 pint jars)
Ingredients
- 10 lbs frozen tart red cherries thawed, juice reserved
- 3 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 cup Clear Jel Cook Type For Canning
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon optional
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
Instructions
- Place the thawed tart cherries in a colander over a large bowl and allow them to drain, collecting the juice. It should take 1-2 hours to collect the required 8 cups of juice.
- Prepare a water bath canner and canning jars while the juice is straining.
- In a large saucepan, whisk together 4 cups cherry liquid, sugar, clear gel and cinnamon. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Cook until it begins to thicken. (Important: Note that only 4 cups of cherry liquid is used here)
- Add lemon juice, and return the mixture to a boil for 1 minute.
- Add the cherries to the pot, and return the mixture to a boil. Stir thoroughly, and be sure the whole pot is heated at this step because any cool spots will cause trouble during the canning process.
- Remove from heat and ladle into prepared canning jars, leaving 1 inch headspace.
- Screw on 2 part lids to finger tight and process in a water bath canner for 35 minutes. Turn off heat and allow the jars to sit in the canner for another 5 minutes before removing them to cool.
Notes
Note that only 4 cups of juice are used in the filling, but a total of 8 cups is collected. Removing this extra juice helps to make a more cherry chunk filled pie filling and is required for this recipe. Save that extra juice for summer drinks, or use it to make cherry pancake syrup by cooking it with equal parts sugar.
Sweet Black Cherry Pie Filling Variation: To make canned pie filling with sweet black cherries, drain the cherries until you've collected about 7 cups of juice (they're less juicy by a bit), decrease the sugar to 2 or 2 1/2 cups and increase the lemon juice to 1/3 or 1/2 cup. Still only use 4 cups of juice in the filling, and reserve the remaining juice for drinks or other cooking.