Rum Soaked Canned Cherries & Molasses

Last Thursday, Brad picked up 35 pounds of cherries from Valicoff Farms. I got 15 pounds of Rainier and 20 pounds of Bing.  We have frozen a bunch of the Rainier and have been munching through them but we needed to get these things preserved quickly. 

Last night, Brad and I started canning some of the cherries. We made two recipes last night: Rum Soaked Cherries and Rum + Cherry Molasses. I've included the recipes below, they are going to be amazing over ice cream come winter time!

Rum Soaked Cherries

Yield: 3 Quarts

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 4 cups water
• 24 cups cherries, pits and stems removed
• 2 Tablespoons Golden Rum (per jar)

Directions:

Combine sugar and water in pot over medium-high heat and dissolve the sugar.  Bring the sugar water to a boil then add all the cherries.  Return to a boil and keep it at a gentle boil for 5 minutes.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the hot cherries into the jars.  Add 2 Tablespoons of Golden Rum to each jar and then ladle the hot syrup into the jar.  Keep 1/2 inch head space.  Remove the air bubbles and if necessary, add more syrup to keep the 1/2 inch head space.

The leftover syrup will be used in the following recipe

Jar Processing (shelf stable up to 1 year):

Place the jars into a stockpot or canner, covering each jar with 1" of warm tap water.  Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Process for 15 minutes at a rolling boil. Remove the jars and place them on a cooling rack.  Keep the jars undisturbed for 24 hours as they cool and the vacuum seal forms.  If the jar lid pops after 24 hours it did not process properly and needs to be refrigerated and consumed within 1 month.

Rum + Cherry Molasses

Ingredients: 

• Remaining syrup from above recipe
• 2 Tablespoons Golden Rum (per jar)
• 1 teaspoon cherry liqueur (per jar)

Directions:

Return the hot cherry syrup to a boil, maintain a gentle boil to reduce by about half (depending how thick you want it to be).  Add the rum and cherry liqueur into the jars and then add the syrup.  Keep 1/2" head space.

Use the same process time as the Rum Soaked Cherries.

Stay tuned to see what other recipes I create with all these cherries!

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