AN ABUNDANCE OF CHERRIES

For me, cherries have always been associated with Christmas mornings. As a child I left a pillowslip at the end of my bed on Christmas Eve as I recited, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Waking in excitement at the first light of dawn I would peer into the depths of the pillowslip to find the small brown paper packet containing apricots, plums and cherries. Stone fruit were scarce and expensive, but always a Christmas treat.

I knew nothing of Morello cherries, the sour kirsche of Europe, until I married Eberhard. Almost thirty years ago he established one of the first coffee shop restaurants in Toowoomba, which became rightly famous due to his skill as a baker of Continental cakes. In those days it was nothing for him to bake and assemble two large Black Forest Torte every day. In those days he was able to buy 5kg tins of sour kirsche imported from Yugoslavia.

When we moved to the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt in 1992 and established Das Helwig Haus B&B, one of the first trees I planted was a Morello Cherry tree to enable us to harvest and preserve our own cherries. Like many other Australian fruit eating birds, the Eastern Rosella parrots have flourished since fruit orchards were established on the Granite Belt and now every year farmers set up scare guns to startle the parrots away from their orchards and vineyards, or they shoot hundreds. These birds are not an endangered species and the alternative is costly – to net the crops.

Grape vines covered in bird netting

I did not want my cat,  Patches, hunting the parrots and bringing them to me like trophies.

I had some netting, but found it insufficient to cover the tree this year. For a couple of hours while I went to purchase more, Patches was placed in a canary cage under the tree to ward off the fruit eating parrots.

Patches guards the cherries

Within two weeks the cherries had darkened in colour and were soft to the touch, indicating that they were ready for picking. They were so soft that I stripped the cherries into a bowl, leaving the stems on the branch.

Ripe Morello cherries

Whenever I work in the garden Patches always comes to investigate. She is a companionable cat who my WWOOF workers say is their supervisor. She lay beside the bowl of cherries begging to have her tummy tickled.

Patches

After the pits were removed I had 5kg of cherries. As I still have bottled cherries left over from the 2007 harvest, I decided this year to convert the entire crop to jam. Cherries are lacking in pectin, which means they don’t set a good jelly unless pectin is added in another form. Most old recipes suggest cracking open the cherry pit and including the almond like kernel to add pectin, but I prefer to add the pulp of stewed Granny Smith apples.

Sugar, cherries and apple pulp.

As I would for Apple Jelly, I peel and core the apples. I place the skins and cores in a pot and barely cover with water. I simmer this until the peels are soft, then drain off the liquid. I pour the liquid over the sliced apples and simmer until soft. I puree this mixture.

Please note, when cooking fruit for jam, the fruit should not be cooked over a high heat until sugar is added, or the pectin will be destroyed.

Morello Cherry Jam

Next I combined the 5kg of pitted cherries, 5kg of sugar and 2kg of apple pulp in the jam pot and brought to a rapid boil, skimming off the froth until the jam started to thicken.

This volume produced 38 jars of Morello Cherry jam, each jar weighing 400gm.

Jars of Morello Cherry Jam