I had some tart cherries in the freezer that I needed to do something with. I’d originally bought them to make cherry pie filling, but seeing as that project wasn’t accomplished and I needed to make some room in the freezer, I decided to make the Danish Cherry Sauce recipe from Ball’s Complete Book of Home Preserving. I’ll eat this more often than I’ll make a pie, and this will be delicious as a cheesecake topping, on ice cream, over chocolate cake, and I plan to give some away too. I used half pints instead of pints that the recipe calls for. I wouldn’t eat a pint at a time, and I didn’t want to waste this yummy sauce. Remember – you can go down in jar size but never increase the size. I also substituted pure Mexican vanilla extract for the almond extract as I’m not a huge almond extract fan. The result was delicious.

Danish Cherry Sauce

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 cinnamon sticks

1-1/2 teaspoons almond extract (I used pure vanilla)

1 cup water

3/4 cups corn syrup

7-1/2 cups pitted sweet or sour cherries

Prepare canner, jars, and lids.

In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine sugar, cinnamon sticks, almond extract, water, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to a gentle boil. Add cherries and boil gently, stirring, until heated through. Discard cinnamon sticks.

Ladle hot cherries and syrup into hot jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot syrup. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip tight.

Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.

Yield: About 3 pints

To serve: To thicken this sauce before serving, combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water in a saucepan. Add 1 pint of the cherry sauce. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring, until sauce thickens, about 2 minutes. (Do NOT add cornstarch before canning.)

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