Ingredients:

1 lb Lambert (or other sweet, dark red) cherries

1 cup water

1 1/4 cup white vinegar

3/4 cup sugar

2 whole star anise

4 whole cloves

8 black peppercorns

Directions:

Prep your jars/lids.

Evenly divide the spices and cherries between 2 pint jars. Combine the water, vinegar and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Pour brine over the cherries, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Remove any bubbles. Seal and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Yield: 2 pints

Note: A great source for canning information is the Blue Book guide to preserving. I highly recommend it for learning how to can. Here is a bunch of other canning books and equipment I find useful.

My thoughts:

I have been seeing more and more pickled fruits at the local fancy markets and thought I’d try my hand at making them myself. I had a pound of ripe, dark red cherries that I didn’t think I’d be able to get to (the problem with cherry season is that I always overestimate how many cherries I can eat and buy yet another cheap bag every time I see them) so I thought they’d be perfect to can. It was a super small batch (I used my Ball Home Canning Discovery Kit and a regular stockpot instead of my big canner) but I think it could be doubled with success. I’m not too sad that I made only two jars though. While they are delicious and I look forward to experimenting with them, I have so many (filled) jars in my canning cabinet it is a little scary. This way I feel no guilt trying to pickle another fruit. Plus it was a super quick canning project, from start to finish, it only took about 20 minutes. Not bad for a weeknight!