Jam help!

[MountainDweller]

I made some cherry jam on Sunday with cherries from a friend's tree - it took ages to get to setting point despite copious lemon juice. Now it has cooled and set properly it has turned rather toffee like! Tastes good but not very spreadable. Can I rescue it by reheating and adding water?

[4merlyknownasSHD]

MD, I think water would help, just a bit, but if you heat it too much it may start to taste like toffee as well. For the future, I would consider adding "Certo". This will save quite a lot of boiling and keep the colour lighter. I am using a jar of cherry jam at the moment that I actually labelled as Damson because of the dark colour!

[JamNan]

copied from Fresh Preserving.com

Soft spread is tough or stiff
This can happen when there’s too much natural pectin in the fruit. The solution is to make sure fruit is fully ripe, not under-ripe.

Another possible cause is cooking the jam or jelly too long. If you are not adding commercial pectin, use a gel stage test to check doneness before filling jars.

You may have used too much sugar. If commercial pectin is not used, 3/4 cup to 1 cup sugar for each 1 cup of juice or fruit should be adequate. Use standard dry measuring cups and level sugar even with the top edge of the cup

(Sweet cherries are low in pectin so I would have added Certo too.)

[JamNan]

Not sure it can be rescued but I bet it tastes delicious!

[MountainDweller]

Thanks all. Not in the UK so can't get Cerlo, although it looks like a good product. I did use sugar with added pectin. My past experience with cherries has not been good - jam always very runny - so think I may have overcompensated! It does taste good! Think I will try reheating one jar briefly with some water to see what happens.

[4merlyknownasSHD]

MD, if you can't get Certo, you can probably get powdered pectin. I love cherry jam, but I do prefer it a cherry red rather than Damson black!