Cherry Orange jam

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a place to write down something I did so I don't forget it.  It's so delicious that I want to make sure I do it again.

We have a cherry tree in the back yard (pie cherries, not sweet cherries) and most years we don't get many cherries.  Not only that, but the birds tend to eat the ones we do get.  Well, to be fair if we made an effort we could have probably picked them but when there aren't many it's not worth the time.

This year Gary and I were in the back yard and we noticed the tree was COVERED in cherries.  We picked a nice big bowl and came inside and pitted them.  I was trying to see if I could get away with making some jam without adding much (if any) sugar, so I tried sweetening it with juice instead of table sugar.  The only kind of juice we had was orange juice, so I mixed it in (a whole can of the concentrate.)

Orange juice adds a great zing to the jam, but not enough sweetness like apple juice would, so I ended up with 10 cups of fruit to which I added 8 cups of sugar (instead of the 10 cups the recipe called for.)   I used two packages of pectin because this represented a double batch of jam.  I also added a little lemon juice and processed the jam according to the instructions on the pectin box, except when I saw it didn't look like it was gelling I boiled it longer to see if I could get it to "take."  No luck.

Jams and jellies are funny things, they are very fussy with the pectin/sugar ratio.  If you don't use the exact measurements, your jam won't gel.  Since I left out two cups of sugar, my jam did not gel.  But you know what?  I don't CARE.  The flavor of this stuff is absolutely AMAZING.  I'm not kidding, you could grab a spoon and just sit with a jar and eat it plain.  (Okay, I would end up in a coma if I did that, but a normal person could.)  Anyway, there were enough cherries left on the tree to make a second batch, and I had enough pectin to do it again, so I made an identical batch.  You can still use it as jam, it's just a bit drippy so you have to eat carefully.  It would also be amazing on waffles, and we have already had it on Swedish pancakes, it was stupendous.

If I had added the other two cups of sugar, it would have gelled perfectly, but it would have been a lot sweeter and would have totally lost that orangy/cherry zing that is so unbelievably good.  I'd rather have the perfect flavor and no gel than firm jam that's too sweet to enjoy.

I have heard of pectin that you can use with lower sugar recipes, maybe next time I'll try that.  But I won't sacrifice the flavor of this stuff.  It's perfect.  :)