I finally finished the Maraschino Cherries and it was a great sense of accomplishment. It takes a few days to process the cherries; first soaking in salt brine, then in boiling sugar water left over night, and finally adding the almond extract and ladling them into the jars. I put a little too much red coloring in so the liquid is darker than I would have liked. The cherries tasted better than the ones in the jars from the store. Not quite as sweet and the almond extract was the perfect finish to get to the Maraschino taste. It was well worth doing this once, but the one thing I didn't anticipate is the bonus recipe I got when everything was done.
After I ladled the Cherries into the jars there was at least two cups of beautiful cherry almond juice in the bottom of the pot. I didn't have the heart to toss the juice so I added 1 1/2 T. of Ball Flex Batch powdered pectin, brought it back to a boil for one minute and ladled my "maraschino cherry jelly" into 2 half pint jars. I processed it for 10 minutes in my water bath. It set really well and I was super anxious to try it so I took it to work and had it on my morning toast. It was really really good. Here is a picture of how beautiful it is.
Here is the link to the Maraschino Cherry Recipe.
.JPG)
