Chocolate and cherries together? In safe home canning? Yep!
This delicious recipe from Pomona’s pectin is great doled out over ice cream, yoghurt, cheese cake, angel food cake, pound cake, etc. It’s also good on rusks, crackers, etc.
You can use frozen cherries for this.
Below are both regular and sugar-free versions of this.
Contents
The recipe
Jar size choices: Either 125 ml (1/2 cup / 4 oz) or quarter-litre (1/2 US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x quarter-litre (1/2 US pint) jars
Headspace: 1 cm (1/4 inch)
Processing time: 10 minutes
The regular version is 60 calories per two tablespoons; the sugar-free version is 30.
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Yield: 4 x quarter-litre (1/2 US pint / 8 oz) jars
Serving size: 2 tablespoons
Calories: 60
Fat: .2 g
- 250 g white sugar (1 cup / 8 oz)
- 2½ teaspoons Pomona’s pectin powder
- 750 g of pitted sweet cherries (4 cups / 1½ lbs)
- 30 g sifted cocoa powder (1/3 cup / 1 oz)
- 125 ml water (1/2 cup / 4 oz )
- 3 teaspoons calcium water
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract (optional)
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1∕8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- Mix together the sugar and the pomona, set aside.
- Prep the cherries: remove stems, cut in half, remove and discard pits.
- Put in pot.
- Add to the pot the cocoa, the water, the calcium water, the lemon juice, the almond extract (optional), the cinnamon and the cayenne pepper. Mix, put on stove and bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and let simmer for 5 minutes.
- After the 5 minutes of cooking is up, add the sugar and pectin mixture a dollop at a time to the pot mixture, stirring all the while.
- When the sugar mixture is all in, let the mixture cook for 1 more minute.
- Remove from heat.
- Ladle into quarter-litre (1/2 US pint / 8 oz) jars.
- Leave 1 cm (1/4 inch) headspace.
- Debubble, then adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Information about Pomona pectin.
Sugar-free version
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Yield: 4 x ¼ litre (1/2 US pint / 8 oz) jars
Serving size: 2 tablespoons
Calories: 30
Fat: .2 g
- 750 g of pitted sweet cherries (4 cups / 1½ lbs)
- 30 g sifted cocoa powder (1/3 cup / 1 oz)
- 125 ml water (1/2 cup / 4 oz )
- 3 teaspoons calcium water
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract (optional)
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1∕8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2½ teaspoons Pomona’s pectin powder
- 2 teaspoons liquid stevia
- Prep the cherries: remove stems, cut in half, remove and discard pits.
- Put in pot.
- Add to the pot the cocoa, the water, the calcium water, the almond extract (optional), the cinnamon and the cayenne pepper. Mix, put on stove and bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and let simmer for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile put the lemon juice in a small bowl. Add to it the pectin powder all at once, mix, set aside.
- After the 5 minutes of cooking is up, add the pectin mixture a dollop at a time to the pot mixture, stirring all the while.
- When the pectin mixture is all in, let the mixture cook for 1 more minute.
- Remove from heat.
- Stir in the liquid stevia.
- Taste, and see if you want any more sweetener in it; if so, add maybe ¼ teaspoon of liquid stevia at a time until it's right for your taste..
- Ladle into ¼ litre (1/2 US pint / 8 oz) jars.
- Leave 1 cm ( ½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, then top up to ½ cm (1/4 inch) headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Sugar-free reference
For stevia, Better Stevia liquid stevia was the stevia used.
More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.
Recipe notes
- If starting from fresh whole cherries, you want 1 kg (2 1/2 lbs) of unpitted whole cherries
- If you are starting with whole frozen cherries, chop them into halves before thawing them.
- Pomona pectin comes with a small pouch of powdered calcium for you to mix with water to make calcium water.
- The pectin powder will clump if you just mix it straight in; that’s why you mix it with something first.
- For a real flavour boost, try sour cherries. If you do, increase the white sugar a few tbsp at a time until you are happy with sweet / sour balance. If using liquid stevia, try 1 1/2 teaspoons. Tip! Let a spoonful cool resting on a plate for 30 to 60 seconds before tasting: when it’s piping hot, you can’t get a true sense of the future taste.
Recipe source
Chocolate Cherry Preserves. In: Duffy, Allison Carroll. Preserving with Pomona’s Pectin. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press. 2013. Page 130.
Modifications made:
- For sugar-free version with liquid stevia, adjusted mixing process for the pectin.
Safety Check
These Chocolate Cherry Preserves, have a pH of 3.64. Well below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6 pH.
Nutrition information
Regular version with sugar
Per 2 tablespoons
- 60 calories, 12 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 2 tablespoons, 2 points
Sugar-free version with liquid stevia
Per 2 tablespoons
- 30 calories, 12 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 tablespoon, 0 points; 2 to 3 tablespoons, 1 point; 4 to 6 tablespoons, 2 points.
* Nutrition info provided by http://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
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