North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Nathan Torgerson <nathantorgerson@yahoo.com>]

Doreen,

  I made chokecherry jelly this year using the recipe from the University of Minnesota Extension Service. 

  When I extracted the juice from the berries, I got 5 1/4 cups of juice for 47 oz of berries.

I used cheesecloth in a strainer to drain the juice, and sqeezed the mush by hand to get as much as I could... but I was very careful not to crush the pits, for the cyanide is in the pits. Several jars later, noone has keeled over.

 

With the U of MN recipe, my jelly came out mild with a reddish color...I have to spread it on rather thick to get a good chokecherry flavor. (The people I gave some to thought it was very good though, as they stuffed their faces!)  The jelly that "mom used to make" back on the farm in Wisconsin was darker (deep red/purple) and had more bite to it...which is the way I prefer it.  It could be that she extracted the juice out of the berries without adding as much water as the method that the U of MN extension uses, or more likely because her recipe has more juice vs. sugar (U of MN uses 3 cups of juice for 6.5 cups of sugar with 1 bottle liquid pectin... my mom's recipe was 4 cups of juice with 5 1/2 cups of sugar with one box sure-jell). I'll experiment next year, that is if I did get all of me black knot sawed off last week and burned, and that it doesn't come back too bad.  I had to cut out countless branches and saw down 5 of my 15 chokecherry trees because they were so infected...not a good sign.

 

Does anyone else have a chokecherry recipe they like?

 

Nathan

Andover, MN Zone 4

Doreen Howard <gardendiva@charter.net> wrote:

Thanks to everyone for the quick replies on chokecherries. And, Sam, that
last site is great--with all the recipes. I bookmarked it for this summer
to make jelly and syrup. This is what I love about the Nafex
listserv......all the wisdom and help. Thanks again.
Doreen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brungardt, Sam"
To: "North American Fruit Explorers"
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 4:55 PM
Subject: RE: [NAFEX] Chokecherries


I meant to include this, a very good fact sheet about using wild fruits from
the University of Minnesota Extension Service. Go to:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/nutrition/DJ1089.html.



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