Homemade Cherry Jam

Cherry season is short, which is exactly why it's worth turning some of it into a jar you can keep. This isn't a jam that needs a long ingredient list or a candy thermometer you've never used before — it's three things, a bit of patience, and a stretch of syrup between your fingers telling you when to stop.

The macerating step matters more than it looks like it should. Sugar draws the juice out of the cherries slowly, so by the time they hit the pan, they're already halfway to jam. The rest is just reduction — cooking down, mashing, and watching for the thread. This is probably our favourite version of our homemade cherry jam ever.

The Ingredients

• 200g cherries, pitted

• 75g sugar (more if your cherries aren't sweet enough)

• 1 lemon, juiced

The Method

1. Mix the cherries, sugar, and lemon juice together. Cover and leave in the fridge to macerate for a couple of hours, until the sugar has drawn out all the juices from the cherries.

2. Tip the macerated cherries, with all their juices, into a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, mashing as you go, until the cherries soften and break down.

3. Keep cooking until you reach the thread stage — around 110–112°C. Stretch a bit of the syrup between your fingers, or let it drop off a spoon. It's ready when it forms a thin, unbroken thread instead of just dripping.

4. Pour the jam into sterilized, clean jars while still hot, and seal.

On the thread test

This is the classic single-thread sugar stage, and it's the visual cue for jam readiness before you've got it down by feel. Once you've made this a few times, you'll know it by how the syrup moves off the spoon — but until then, the thread doesn't lie.