The felt cherries are ripe – I’m making jam

July is in full swing. Everything is ripening—the strawberries are finishing their harvest, the felt cherries, the serviceberries, the red and white currants are ripe, the black currants are almost ripe, the gooseberries are ripening, the cherry blossoms are turning red, the raspberries are ripening. You don't even know what to pick first. After work, we went to the dacha, and while I was weeding the garlic and onion beds, my husband was picking cherries.

In the spring the cherry tree blossomed profusely and there were many ovaries.

But there were frosts in early June, and some of the berries froze and fell off. But there's still a harvest, and it's enough for us to make jam and eat, and the kids can pick them, and the little birds can enjoy them, too.

This morning, I took the bucket of cherries out of the fridge and started processing them. I decided to make a few jars of jam.

Felt cherry jam recipe

I weighed the berries, I need to know how much sugar I need.

I washed them in warm running water, sorted them, and removed the short petioles and leaves.

I sprinkled it with sugar (a layer of berries, a layer of sugar): 1 kg of sugar per 1 kg of berries, and left it for a while.

The cherries have released their juices—they need to be stirred carefully. I placed the pan on the stove; when the jam boiled, I reduced the heat, skimmed off the foam, and simmered it for about 5 minutes. Then I turned off the stove.

The jam should cool, then it needs to be simmered over low heat for another five minutes.

The jam turned out thick and syrupy, with whole berries, fragrant, beautiful, and delicious. I made three half-liter jars.

If the berries are overripe and to prevent them from falling apart, you can add a little citric acid while cooking. I didn't add any; our cherries are dense, fleshy, and very sweet—it's the variety I mostly make jam from.

There are several felt cherry bushes growing at the dacha, and the berries have a variety of flavors. One bush produces juicy, sweet, thin-skinned berries—jam made from these berries tends to overcook, requiring the addition of lemon juice. Another bush produces large, sweet-and-tart cherries, and it ripens later than the others.