How to Make Cherry Butter – Preserving Cherries

How to make cherry butter using a glut of sweet cherries.

This cherry butter recipe is THE recipe for using tons of sweet cherries. If you happen to have a cherry tree in the garden or a nice neighbor who has one.

Otherwise, you might want to look for something else to do with cherries, as making cherry butter using a small amount of cherries is not worth the time you invest in it and buying cherries to make cherry butter can become an expensive business.

But if you do have access to lots of sweet cherries, this cherry butter is probably the most delicious you can do with them in ways of preserving.

This incredibly flavorful, smooth, deep-colored cherry butter is perfect for toast in the morning, mixing with yogurt for a quick dessert or snack, topping semolina or rice pudding, using in cakes, or making presents.

You can make fruit butter using an array of fruits. I make cherry butter almost every year (depending on how many cherries there are in our tree – usually more than I can manage), rhubarb butter every two years or so, and occasionally apple butter (when our neighbors have more apples than they can manage themselves), peach or nectarine butter or blueberry butter.

I love all of them, but cherry butter is definitely my favorite. While I am not particularly keen on sweet cherry jam (I find it too bland compared to sour cherry jam or berry jams), I absolutely adore cherry butter.

What makes it so good is the concentrated cherry flavor, sweet and tangy, obtained by cooking the cherries with very little sugar for a very long time. The liquid cooks away and you are left with a delicious, thick and smooth puree, so good you will probably end up eating it every morning.

I usually make 2 or 3 batches of this cherry butter every year. We eat lots of it ourselves, and I also fill some into smaller jars, which I then give away as small gifts when invited somewhere or for Christmas.

Cherry butter versus cherry jam

Cherry butter, or any kind of fruit butter, is a thick, smooth, butter-like puree made by slowly cooking the fruit and only lightly sweetening it.

Jams are also cooked fruit with sugar with the addition of pectin; they are usually thicker and you will use much more sugar when making jam.

Differences between jam and fruit butter

• Sugar amount: to make fruit butter, you will need less sugar than you will need when making jam.
• Pectin: Jam is usually made with pectin or cooked with lots of sugar until it starts to jelly. Fruit butter does not have any pectin added, and despite the very long cooking time, it will not jelly. Its consistency is that of a soft, smooth spread.
• Spices: jam doesn't normally contain any spices, while fruit butter usually does. However, I prefer my fruit butter pure, so I don't add any spices to it.
• Preserving: Jams can be filled in jars, and that's it. Fruit butter needs to be preserved in hot water to keep as long as jams do. The low amount of sugar doesn't make their shelf-life very long unless you preserve the jars.
• Taste: Jams are very sweet, and that is their main taste characteristic. Fruit butter is less sweet, retain more of the natural flavor of the fruit, and have a more defined fruit taste.

Recipe ingredients

• I weighed the cherries after pitting them, so I made cherry butter from 3 kg/ 6.6 oz pitted cherries. Scroll down the linked page to find more information regarding the equivalents of unpitted to pitted cherries and read more about cherries.
• The best way of removing the stone is to use a cherry pitter (the Amazon link opens in a new tab). It costs very little to buy it, and it will make your life so much easier if you have a lot of cherries to pit.
• You can add spices to fruit butter. I used to do that, but then I realized that everybody in our family prefers pure cherry butter, no spices added. The spices are nice for a small sample but too much if you eat cherry butter regularly. So you can decide if you make only a small batch of spiced cherry butter or if you leave it all pure.
• You can add some cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, and a little nutmeg, everything to taste.

Homemade cherry butter step-by-step

• Place the fruit in a large, wide pot together with the apple juice.
• Bring to a boil, turn the heat down to medium-low, and cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, every 10-15 minutes or so.

• Add the sugar, stir well, and continue cooking for 30 minutes, stirring more often now and making sure you scrape the bottom and the edges of the pot well while stirring to prevent the cherry butter from catching.
• The cooking time depends on the quantity of fruit you are turning into butter and on the size of your cooking pot. If you cook a smaller amount of cherries, you will need less time, if cooking more cherries it might take longer.
• A large, wide cooking pot will accelerate things a little bit.
• Puree the fruit with an immersion blender. Make sure to wear something with long sleeves and maybe even gloves. The butter might splatter, and that can be really painful.

• You can add more sugar, if you wish, but I don't find it necessary, the cherry butter should remain a little tart and tasting more of cherries than only sweet. If using spices, you can add them now.
• Carefully pour the cherry butter into sterilized jars using a jam funnel.
• For more information on sterilizing jar, have a look at this post Simple Apricot Jam and How to Sterilize Jars.

How to preserve fruit butter

• Preserve the cherry butter by boiling the jars in a large pot of water.
• Place the closed, hot jars in a large pot lined with a textile kitchen cloth and fill the pot with hot water to cover the jars.
• The jars should not touch each other, neither should they touch the bottom of the pot, they should all fit snugly into the pot and onto the folded kitchen towel.
• Boil the jars for about 20-25 minutes. Carefully lift them out of the water, place them on another kitchen towel on the counter and let get cool.

How to store fruit butter

• Store it in a cool, dark place; it will be great for at least 6 months. I had it for longer, and it was perfectly fine. Use your common sense when opening a jar of fruit butter that has been kept for longer. If it looks and smells OK, then you can eat.
• If you see mold or anything strange, if it smells weird, discard it. It never happened to me, but you never know.

How to Make Cherry Butter – Preserving Cherries

Learn how to make cherry butter using a glut of sweet cherries.

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Course: Preserves and Canning Recipes

Cuisine: German, American

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Cook Time: 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 3 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 -5 jars

Calories: 647kcal

Author: Adina

Equipment

• ▢
  Very large wide pot
• ▢
  Jars
• ▢
  Canner optional

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Ingredients 

• ▢ 6½ lbs fresh sweet cherries weighed after pitting them, 3 kg, Note 1
• ▢ 1½ cups apple juice 350 ml
• ▢ 1½ cups granulated sugar 300 g
• ▢ spices optional, Note 2

Instructions

Cherry butter:

• Cook cherries: Place the fruit in the pot and add the apple juice. Stir and bring to a boil; turn the heat down to medium-low, and cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, every 10-15 minutes or so.

  6½ lbs fresh sweet cherries/ 3 kg + 1½ cups apple juice/ 350 ml
• Add the sugar, stir well, and continue cooking for 30 minutes, stirring more often now and scraping the bottom and the edges of the pot well while stirring to prevent the cherry butter from catching. A large, wide cooking pot will accelerate things a little bit.

  1½ cups granulated sugar/ 300 g
• The cooking time depends on the quantity of fruit you are turning into butter and on the size of your cooking pot. If you cook a smaller amount of cherries, you will need less time; if cooking more cherries it might take longer.
• Blend the fruit with an immersion blender.
• If using spices, you can add them now.
• Transfer to jars: Carefully pour the cherry butter into sterilized jars using a jam funnel.

Can cherry butter:

• Use a canner, if available, and follow the manual instructions.
• Without a canner: Place the closed, hot jars in a large pot lined with a textile kitchen cloth and fill the pot with hot water to cover the jars. The jars should not touch each other, neither should they touch the bottom of the pot, they should all fit snugly into the pot and onto the folded kitchen towel.
• Boil the jars for about 20-25 minutes. Carefully lift them out of the water, place them on another kitchen towel on the counter, and let them get cool.
• Store in a cool, dark place

Notes

1. Amount of cherries: Making cherry butter is only worth it if you have lots of cherries because they will cook down very much, much more than regular jam. That being said, cherry butter tastes much much better than regular jam.
2. Spices are optional: I don't like adding spices to the cherry butter, but if you like, you can add cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, and nutmeg, to taste.

Nutrition

Serving: 1jar | Calories: 647kcal | Carbohydrates: 165g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 4mg | Fiber: 13g | Sugar: 144g

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