Cherry Pie Preserves

These Cherry Pie Preserves taste remarkably like the filling of a really good, old-fashioned cherry pie. Whole sweet and tart cherries are suspended in a glossy syrup flavored with vanilla, a tiny bit of mace, and just enough lemon to brighten everything up.

I use a simplified French-style preserves method that gives you beautifully plump cherries without requiring the traditional multi-day process. Give the cherries a few hours to macerate, cook the preserves, and you’re done.

Spoon them over toast, ice cream, or pancakes, but I developed them specifically for my Cherry Cheesecake. Let me tell you, slightly warm preserves over cool, creamy cheesecake checks all the boxes. Let’s make some.

Cherry Pie Preserves, At a Glance

✅Skill Level: Beginner
✅Skills: Macerating, using an instant read thermometer
✅Type: French-style preserves
✅Number of Ingredients: 6
✅Prep Time: 10 minutes
✅Maceration Time: 4-6 hours
✅Cook Time: about 20 minutes
✅Yield: about 4 cups (2 pints) or 32 2-Tablespoon servings

Jump Straight to the Recipe

Why You Will Love These Cherry Pie Preserves

Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Maybe. Even if pie maker isn’t on your résumé, you can absolutely make these preserves.

Plump cherries swimming in a glossy, ruby-red syrup flavored with vanilla, lemon, and just enough mace—the old-fashioned cherry pie spice—to make every spoonful taste remarkably like homemade cherry pie filling?

Eat your heart out, Billy.

Let’s get right into it, and if you already know how to make preserves, you can skip right down to the recipe.

How to Make These Preserves

These preserves are all about keeping the cherries plump and recognizable while concentrating their juices into a glossy syrup. There’s a little process involved, but nothing about it is difficult. Here’s what you’ll need.

• cherries: You can use fresh or frozen cherries and either sweet, sour, or a mixture of both sweet and sour cherries. My local grocery store sells 2 pound bags of frozen sweet and sour cherries at about a 70% sweet, 30% sour mixture, so that’s what I used. And you don’t even have to thaw them first. If using fresh cherries, wash them well and pit them. Even with frozen, check carefully for any pits the machinery may have missed. They don’t call them “stones” for nothing!
• sugar: Granulated sugar sweetens the preserves, helps create their syrupy texture, and also acts as a preservative. You can reduce the sugar somewhat, but doing so will affect both the final consistency and keeping quality.
• lemon juice: Use freshly squeezed lemon juice. You only need a Tablespoon, but it’s important. Not only does it balance the flavor, it also lowers the pH so that the naturally occurring pectin in the fruit can gel.
• salt: Salt is not a traditional ingredient in fruit preserves, but since we’re going for a cherry pie flavor profile, a bit of salt really works here. It brings dimension to the cherry flavor as well as to the other seasonings, vanilla and mace.
• vanilla bean: Brings a warm, almost creamy nuance to the preserves. If you don’t have a vanilla bean, substitute 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste.
• mace: Just 1/8 teaspoon provides a warm, spicy note to the preserves. Mace is the cherry pie spice, so in the preserves, it reads as a nostalgic, old-fashioned cherry pie filling. If you don’t have mace, leave it out or substitute a scant ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg or cinnamon, or ¼ teaspoon almond extract.

How to Make Cherry Pie Preserves

While nothing is difficult here, there is a bit of a process. Here’s what you’ll do.

1. Split and scrape the vanilla bean. You’ll use both the seeds and the pod, so don’t throw anything away.
2. Combine the cherries, sugar, lemon juice, salt, vanilla bean and seeds, and mace in a large bowl. Stir everything together well so the cherries are evenly coated in sugar and seasonings.
3. Cover and macerate for 4–6 hours at room temperature (or overnight in the refrigerator), until the cherries have released plenty of juice and the sugar has mostly dissolved.
4. Strain the cherries, reserving them for later. Pour all the beautiful cherry syrup into a large saucepan or saucier. Don’t press down on the fruit, though.
5. Bring the syrup to a boil over medium heat. Cook the juices to 220° F / 104.4° C.

1. Add the reserved cherries back to the hot syrup and return the mixture to a boil.
2. Skim off any foam that collects on the surface. Discard the foam.
3. Cook the preserves, stirring frequently but gently, until they reach 223°F / 106°C. Stir carefully so you don’t crush the cherries.
4. Remove the preserves from the heat. Fish out the vanilla bean, scraping off any cherry goodness clinging to it, and compost or toss it. Pour the preserves into very clean jars or a large bowl and let cool.

Jenni Says: For maximum thickening, let the preserves sit, undisturbed, in the fridge for 48 hours. They won’t be as thick as commercial preserves, but they will have lovely body. If you can’t wait that long, worry not. Your preserves will still taste great even if they are a little bit on the thin side.

Why Cook the Syrup Separately First?

Separating the fruit from the syrup for the first boil allows the juices to concentrate without cooking the fruit to death. They’ll get plenty of time on the stove once you add them back in.

Their late addition also helps the cherries to hold their shape. The less agitation, the more whole fruit you’ll have in your preserves.

Simplified French-Style Preserves Vs. Traditional French Fruit Preserves

Making traditional French-style, no-pectin-added fruit preserves is a multi-day affair involving maceration, simmering, more maceration, and eventual cooking to 223° F / 106° C.

The resulting preserves are gorgeous, and if you’re interested in the whole process, you can read about it in my French-style Strawberry Preserves post. And you can easily use those instructions to give these cherries the full traditional treatment.

For this recipe, and especially because I wanted it to read more as “cherry pie” than “cherry preserves,” I leave out the first simmer and go straight to cooking the preserves. This not only shortens the process, but also preserves more of the cherries’ fresh-fruit texture.

Traditionally preserved fruit becomes candied through and through, so the texture no longer reads as “fresh.” This abbreviated method lands somewhere in between: plump, juicy cherries in a beautifully concentrated syrup, with some of their fresh-fruit character still intact.

For another example of a modified French-style preserves method, see my mixed berry jam recipe.

Ways to Serve Cherry Pie Preserves

While you can, and absolutely should, use these preserves as you would any preserve or jam–on toast, do think a bit outside the box, because there are many ways to enjoy these preserves.

Stir a spoonful or two into yogurt and granola. This might be my favorite “healthy” use of cherry pie preserves!

You can also fold some into lightly sweetened (or even unsweetened) whipped cream and serve it as a “fool” for dessert. Easy, elegant, and no-bake. (See my cranberry fool for inspiration).

Spoon them onto cake–it works well with both chocolate (mom’s chocolate pound cake) and vanilla (whipping cream pound cake).

Or pancakes! Specifically my chocolate pancakes which are already dessert-adjacent.

And then, maybe the pièce de résistance, the very raison d’etre of cherry pie preserves: spoon them over my bakery-style cheesecake for cherry cheesecake.

And to really lean into the cherry pie filling aspect, take 2 cups of the preserves and heat with a slurry of 3 Tablespoons water and 2-3 teaspoons cornstarch (depending on how thick you like it). Bring it to a boil, let it boil for 2 minutes, and then stir in 2 teaspoons of butter off the heat.

Pass this magical topping at the table so everyone can take as much or as little as they’d like. Spoonful for spoonful, preserves are much sweeter than pie filling, so plan accordingly.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask questions in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

A Note About Measurements

My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.

For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.

I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.

This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.

Escali Primo Digital Scale

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