Misadventures with Cherry Jam

OK, I will try this one last time without the pictures I took. I cannot get the pictures to go where I want them. This is one of those better late than never posts

A few weeks ago was the height of the cherry season, and I picked about 30 pounds of cherries off my tree. Most were pitted, bagged and frozen. They will be canned when the weather turns cool. A lot were eaten, or given away, and, as usual, I could not even reach the top half of the tree, so another 20 to 30 pounds of cherries were eaten by the birds or rotted on the tree.

But I did make two jams, Spiced Orange Cherry Jam, and a variation I made up called Citrus Cherry Raisin Jam

For the original jam, I ran out of sugar, and had to substitute brown sugar. I still came up about 2 cups short, so it didn't jell like it was supposed to. So I added a bag of powdered pectin and it came out really good. It was not overly sweet like so many jams are.

The next night, after I bought regular and light sugar, I tried it again. This time, I substituted a half pound of the cherries for a half pound of raisins. I put in three cups each of regular and brown sugar. It came out tasting real good. The only problem is, I spaced on checking the temperature (jams jell at 224 F) and I let it get to 236 F, which is closer to CANDY temperatures. So now, I have seven jars of tasty stuff that is too hard to use as a jam, and too soft to call a candy.