How to Make Cherry Butter in a Crockpot and Dealing With Preserving Failures
Cherry Butter was one of my first canning recipes all those years ago. When we first moved back to Oregon in 2010 we rented 60 acres with a large orchard that was mostly cherries. The landlord’s wife told me how to make this recipe. When I told her I found 100 canning jars at a garage sale to get me started her response was “that might be enough for your first year.” I thought she was crazy. Little did I know back then.
Fruit butters are an excellent choice for beginners because they don’t require pectin. Don’t let the name fool you either- they don’t contain butter. That is unless you need a little to keep the foam down. You can freeze your fruit butter or can it. Because you can freeze it, fruit butters are something you can make even if you have no canning equipment. It’s also a good recipe to make during hot weather because your crockpot will not heat up your kitchen as much. It was a record shattering 112 and we have no air conditioning so this was a huge bonus for me.
This is a cherry butter recipe I have been using for years. The joy of this recipe is you can be quite laissez faire about the whole thing. You can dump pitted and destemmed cherries in your crockpot and add some amount of some sweetener and throw in cinnamon, almond extract, and lemon juice. I have used sugar, coconut sugar, and honey to sweeten my fruit butters. I decided to share my sugar based recipe because it gives you the best concentrated cherry flavor. Coconut sugar and honey are both stronger flavors. They are excellent choices in fruit butters but they will alter the flavor slightly.
But the truth is that as I prepared my cherry butter I encountered several failures that I have never experienced before. As a blogger, it’s been rather humbling. Here I was going to share my foolproof cherry butter recipe and I had nothing but hardships. But I will share what I did to fix the problems.
I talked about the cherries I am using in my Cherry Clafoutis recipe. The trees are in my river pasture and are left wild with no pruning, care, or water. This has likely been the case since before I was born. Based on the circumference of the trees they are likely at least 75 years old if not closer to 91, the age of my house. This year the trees had a giant bumper crop of cherries. I have never gotten so many cherries from these trees! One lesson I learned is that these are drier cherries and are not behaving like the large juicy cherries from younger trees that are a more modern variety.
I have chronicled all my cherry butter making adventures and all the side trials. In my previous article I shared 7 Rules for Freezing in Glass Mason Jars. Due to the heat I will not be canning. In this tutorial I will cover crock pot cherry butter and how to fix an over dry fruit butter. In my next article I will cover using a steam juicer to make cherry juice.
Crockpot Cherry Butter
Ingredients
- 12 cups cherries, stems and pits removed
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
- 1/2 Tablespoon almond extract
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
Instructions
- Wash the cherries and remove stems and pits. Place 12 cups of cherries in your crockpot.
- Add the cinnamon, almond extract, sugar, and lemon juice to your crockpot. Stir with large metal spoon.
- Place a lid on your crockpot and cook on high for about one hour or until the contents begin to heat up and the cherries start releasing their nature juices.
- Vent the lid by placing two knives across the top of of the crockpot and place the lid on the knives.
- Cook overnight, or 8-12 hours, with lid vented and on low.
- Optional: The cherry butter is ready to eat and preserve but if you want a smoother texture you can use a hand blender briefly. until you get the texture you would like.
- Process half-pint or pint jars in a water bath canner for 10 minutes or follow current guidelines for cherry jam. Be sure to adjust for altitude.
Making Crockpot Cherry Butter
You will need.
a 5 quart crockpot
A ladle, funnel, and mason jars to put your cherry butter in.
2 Knives to prop up your crockpot lid
12 cups of cherries with stems and pits removed.
Sugar
Lemon Juice
Almond Extract
Cinnamon
As you can see in the photos, I have a very old crockpot. You do not need fancy new equipment to be successful. This crockpot still works great and there is no reason to upgrade.
To make your cherry butter you first will need to destem them and take the pits out. I used my handy dandy Norpo cherry pit remover for this.
After you remove the stems and pits, fill your crockpot with 12 cups of cherries. Sprinkle the 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon on top and add the 1/2 Tablespoon of almond extract.
Add your sweetener. I used 1 1/2 cups of white sugar although you can use more or less to taste. Coconut sugar and honey are both great choices as well. Different sweeteners have different flavoring and sweetening abilities. I would use 1 cup of coconut sugar or 3/4 cup of honey for 12 cups of cherries. I do not like my jams, jellies, and butters over sugared though. If you like a sweeter product then definitely add more to taste.
Add 1/2 cup of lemon juice and stir everything together.
Stirring will help bring out natural juices. More natural juice will be released during cooking.
Put the lid fully on your crockpot and cook on the high setting for about one hour, or until boiling. You do not have to use your crockpot in your kitchen if you are heat-wave preserving. You can place it in a garage, bathroom, or an out of the way room.
You can see here that the natural juices are beginning to be released. The mixture is hot and near boiling.
Now is the time to turn your crockpot on low and vent the lid. Lay 2 knives across the top of your crockpot and put the lid on top of the knives.
Let your crockpot cook on low for about 8 hours, or overnight. The cherry butter is ready to eat. You can briefly use a hand blender if you desire a smoother product. You can process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes or you can freeze. For freezing instructions see my 7 Rules for Freezing in Glass Mason Jars.
Fixing Crockpot Cherry Butter
I left my crockpot on overnight but in the morning I noticed my cherry butter was over reduced. My cherries were from an older tree and were smaller and less juicy. Below is an example of cherry butter that is reduced too far. There is not a lot of liquid left. The good news is that it is not burned, it is just heavily reduced. I took a bite and it is RICH!!!!! The texture isn’t preferable at all. It was very dry.
Adventure Dad ran to the cherry tree to pick cherries to make juice. I used my steam juicer to make cherry juice. You can read about that in my next article. By this time it was 9 o’clock at night and I just stuck everything in jars in the refrigerator to deal with later. If you overly reduce your cherry butter you can use store bought cherry juice for this step if you need to. Any 100% fruit juice would work.
Cherry juice form a steam juicer.
The next day I put all my cherry butter in a pan so that I could use my hand blender and blend in cherry juice.
One of the rules of cooking is that it’s easier to add than subtract. I started blending the cherries with 1/2 cup cherry juice. I was aiming for the consistency of a thick jam. After that, I added in liquid 1/4 cup at a time until I got the consistency I wanted. I ended up adding 1 cup of cherry juice. Very very cherry is the descriptive for this cherry butter.
When the cherry butter was the texture I wanted I used a ladle and funnel and filled my half pint mason jars to 1” below the rim in order to leave plenty of room for expansion during freezing. If you are water bath canning then you fill to 1/4”.
It is possible to preserve food during heat waves and hopefully you have some ideas to help you. I have also made apple butter and nectarine butter in my crockpot as well as blackberry jam. If you are experiencing a heat-wave you can also simply flat freeze your fruit and process it in the colder days of autumn and winter.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article. Be sure to let me know how it works for you!