If you have the time...

try making your own Cherry Butter. It's so good. All you is need patience and about 4 hours! Well, we all know how much patience I have, but the good thing is you don't really have to do anything but stir every 30 minutes. Not a bad thing. You can get stuff done around the house. I did laundry. Big deal, there will be more tomorrow.

We love cherries, fresh, cooked, in a pie, in a preserve, in a BBQ sauce. So why not try making Cherry Butter. It's not easy to find around here at the store, Apple and Pumpkin seems to be easier to find.I had to be home all day so I figured, why not? I used frozen cherries. Not finding fresh here in the month of March, and no way was I pitting hundreds of them. I'm a bit lazy. Frozen works perfectly. I've used frozen before making Cherry jam. It's fine.

I tried finding a Cherry butter recipe online, not many out there to make, but tons to buy. So instead I found a couple of recipes to give me an idea of what to do, then found some Apple butter recipes to get some more ideas. I wasn't going to can it for long time storage. I'm just keeping it in the refrigerator, it'll be all gone before we even know it anyway!

Basically it's just a couple of ingredients and some spices if you like. All you need is time, time to stir and stir and stir. After about three or four hours at medium-low heat, it gets thick and spreadable. It's done. Be careful to stir at least every thirty minutes and keep the heat low. Your patience will be rewarded well. Cherry butter is a smooth and sweet treat. You taste the fruit, the cherry flavor really comes out when it's slowly cooked down. It's fantastic on toast, pancakes, crackers, or even drizzled on top of some ice cream. Try spreading it on a slice of toasted pound cake, or as a filling for cookies. Endless possibilities, all delicious.

It gets thick by reducing and reducing and reducing. Nothing in it but cherries, some sugar, use more or less what you like, and any spices you want, I used cinnamon and nutmeg. You can add allspice or cloves if you like, or nothing at all. A little squeeze of lemon juice brightens the flavor. And I found out from a friend that I can skip the stove top altogether and just put the whole concoction in the oven at 350°F and let it simmer away for a while. Stir it occasionally. No scorching, no burning. That's my kind of recipe. Definitely next time!

A while back I was in a canning phase, and made a few different types of jam. Cherry Jam was at the top of the list. It's so good. The Cherry Butter is a little different from the jam. They call it butter but there's no butter in it, it's just a spread.  A smooth, silky spread, and to me, a little easier than making jam. And next time it's going in the oven, I like taking the easy way out! And it beats getting splattered :)

Cherry Butter
recipe by Carol @  There's No Thyme to Cook
Printable Recipe
yield: more or less, about 2 pints

2 lbs cherries, fresh or frozen, pitted (I used 4 12-ounce bags of frozen dark, pitted cherries)
1 1/2 cups sugar
big squeeze of fresh lemon juice, about 1 tablespoon
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 vanilla bean, split

Put the cherries in a large dutch oven on medium-high heat and cook, covered for about an hour. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir, cover, but prop open the lid so the steam can escape. Bring back to a boil; reduce heat to medium, and stir the pot every 30 minutes. After another hour, pour the cherry mixture through a food mill and then return it to the pot. Heat on medium-low for a few more hours until the cherries have reduced and become very thick, stirring every 30 minutes or so. If it starts to stick, lower the heat a little more and keep stirring. Keep the lid on but not tight, so that the steam can escape. When it's reduced and very thick, take it off heat. Pour into sterilized jars and store in the refrigerator. Mine got very thick when it completely cooled in the frig. Don't overcook!

Note: You can also simmer it in the oven at 350°F for a few hours, stirring occasionally, remove when it gets really thick.

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Joining Suzy from Kitchen Bouquet for another Flashback Friday!

Joining Beth at Beth Fish Reads for her fun Weekend Cooking Party. Every weekend. It's open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share!

Joining in on the fun at Sweet as Sugar Cookies for Sweets for a Saturday!

Joining Mary at the Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. Stop by the Little Red House to see more mosaics!

 

and joining Debbie from Dining with Debbie for What's On the Menu Wednesday!