Black cherry jam

I didn't realise, until a friend pointed it out to me, how difficult it is to get black cherry jam nowadays.  She loves it and can't seem to get it (reasonably priced) anywhere.  I said I'd look out so, when I remembered that Sainsbury's does bags of frozen black cherries, I knew what to do!

I had two bags of the cherries which I defrosted and simmered in a little water.  I asked my friend if she wanted whole cherries or cut up cherries and, in the end, mashed them a bit with a potato masher which worked great.

Then I measured what I had and added sugar in the proportion pint to pound - in other words for every pint of fruit I added 1 lb sugar.

Now, cherries are pretty low in pectin so I used jam sugar and also added a good squirt of bottled lemon juice.

I added the sugar and lemon juice to the cherry mix, gave it a good stir and left it, covered, overnight.  I've discovered that when I do that, less boiling is needed and setting point comes very quickly.

So the next day, when the sugar had all dissolved, I boiled it up, checked for set (got it first time) and bottled it.   Today I will be off for coffee with my friend, with several jars of jam and a jar of marmalade.  I love bearing gifts!

As for cost, well, no, not cheap, certainly not frugal!  The cherries were £4 (although they are sometimes on special offer) and the jam sugar is more expensive than the ordinary sugar at £2.00.  But, when you can't normally find that jam, it is worth it and it's not more expensive than comparative quality bought jam (I checked My Supermarket).

And making jam is a very satisfying experience!