How to Preserve Sour Cherries
If you have an excess of sour cherries, the easiest and fastest way to preserve the fruit is by freezing them. To freeze sour cherries, you don't need special canning equipment---it only takes a few minutes to prepare the sour cherries for freezing. You will definitely be glad that you went through the effort of preserving the fruit because they are great for making a last-minute cherry pie or fruity topping for a cheesecake. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Grind up 6 tablets of Vitamin C, each 500 mg in strength, and dissolve them in a bowl with 1 gallon of cold water. If you have powdered Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), you can use 1 teaspoon of the acid instead of the tablets. The Vitamin C helps preserve the fruit's color.
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2
Wash the cherries, and gently remove the stems and pits. Place each cherry into the bowl of cold water and Vitamin C immediately after you have cleaned and removed the stems and pits until all of the fruit has been placed in the bowl.
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3
Allow the cherries to remain in the Vitamin C-infused water for at least 30 minutes. Drain the cherries.
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4
Take a 1 quart freezer bag and fill it with cherries, leaving three inches of room at the top of the bag. Add 2/3 cup of sugar to each bag of cherries.
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Squeeze out any excess air, seal the bag and place it in the freezer. Write the date on each bag with a permanent marker before you put the bags in the freezer. The cherries should be frozen within three hours, depending upon the efficiency of your freezer, and how many bags of cherries you pile on top of each other. The cherries will keep in the freezer for up to six months.
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Tips & Warnings
Pit the cherries by slicing them around the center, and then pulling apart the halves and removing the pit. If you don't want to slice the cherries in half, use a cherry pitter or an olive pitter, which squeeze one end of the fruit and push out the pit. Pitters can be found in home goods stores in the kitchen section.
Don't pile too many bags of sour cherries on top of each other in the freezer, which will affect the freezing time and compromise the consistency and flavor of the cherries.
