Chokecherry Curd 2015 Recipe

So, as-you-know-bob, a few years ago I posted a recipe for cranberry curd. It’s a good recipe if you’re starting with raw (fresh or frozen) cranberries, BUT what if you’re starting with, say, a litre of sour-fruit puree? A recipe that starts from raw and doesn’t tell you the volume of puree you’ll wind up with is… not entirely helpful on that front.
So!
Today I find myself (woohoo!) with about a litre of chokecherry purree – having picked 2-3lbs of chokecherries from my friend’s tree, yesterday, and then stewed and milled them to form the base of a chutney I’ll be making later on – and a definite interest in seeing if I can do a chokecherry curd along the same lines as the cranberry curds and black currant curds that I’ve made in the past.
 
Chokecherries are pretty ubiquitous in these parts. They’re native to the area, which helps, but they were also a big favourite of city planners and condo developers about, oh, 25 years ago because (a) they have eye-catching purple foliage that turns crimson in the fall, (b) they have long, frilly white flowers in the spring that turn into grape-like clusters of almost-black berries over the course of summer, and (c) even though they drop their fruit all over the sidewalks, the birds and insects love them just as much as they love serviceberries, which means they get cleaned up pretty quickly with no effort on the part of Neighbourhood Associations or what-have-you.
So there are a LOT of them around the place, and – because raw chokecherries are bitter enough to make your lizard-brain go “this may actually be poisonous,kiddo” (or at least to turn your mouth inside out from the puckering – thense the name), most people will only ask why you’re picking chokecherries, not ask you to stop doing so.
 
Y’all know how my motto is “Free fruit is good fruit,” right? Right.
 
So I’ve already made chokecherry jelly this year, and will be making chokecherry chutney (with the addition of not-so-free plums, onions, and dried cranberries, but hey) shortly as well. I’ve decided that, since I only need about 3C of chokecherry puree to make my chutney, I’m going to use the extra cup worth to try the following recipe:
 
 
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Chokecherry Curd
 
INGREDIENTS
 
1C choke cherry puree
¼C butter
¾C sugar
+
¼C sugar
3 eggs
 
 
DIRECTIONS
 
Sterilize 6 half-cup jars before you actually start making the fruit curd[1]. You won’t really have time to get this bit done once you’ve started the cooking process, so.
THEN
In a sauce pan, over very low heat, stir the puree, the butter, and ¾C sugar together until well-combined.
In a 2C measuring cup (or a random bowl, but the measuring cup makes pouring easier), blend the eggs with the ¼C sugar until extremely smooth.
Add the egg mixture to the puree mixture slowly and carefully while stirring gently over that same low heat[2].
Once the egg mixture and the fruit mixture are smoothly and completely blended, you can – if you want to – turn the heat up to “medium”[3].
Continue stirring, gently, to prevent scorching and to help the mixture thicken (if it starts to boil “too early”, turn the heat down, fyi).
The mixture will eventually turn a slightly paler shade of pinky-purple (though it will still be dark). Around this time, it will start to bubble and also (rapidly) get thick enough to “coat the back of a spoon[4]”. This means it’s ready to can! 😀
Take your curd OFF the heat!
Pour/spoon your curd into those sterilized jars.
Cap them and process them in a boiling water bath (yes, even if you sterilized the jars in the oven) for a solid 15 minutes (you can go longer, if you want) for half-cup jars. You’ll need to go longer if you’re using bigger jars, fyi. (I like the little ones because they make really nice gifts, and you can use up a whole one during a single pancake brunch).
 
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Anyway. That’s my (as-yet-untested) [EDIT: It works! :-D] chokecherry curd recipe.
 
Wish me luck! 😀
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1]Keep them warm-and-clean either by keeping them in the hot water, or by keeping them in a 225F oven. You can sterilize the glass at this temperature, if you bake them for 20 minutes, but you still have to boil the lids and rings if you go that route.
 
[2] The idea here is to prevent the egg mixture from, basically, “flash-cooking” before it’s blended into the fruit mixture. Part of making that work is pre-blending the eggs with some sugar. The other part is keeping the heat low and making sure to blend the fruit in steadily, but also fairly quickly. A whisk is a wonderful tool for this, fyi.
 
[3] This isn’t strictly speaking recommended. But I’m also impatient when it comes to waiting for my fruit curds to thicken, so I do this fairly frequently and… it doesn’t actually hurt anything. You just run the risk of scortching things and having them burn to the bottom of the pan. Less curd for you plus you then have to be careful about making sure you don’t scrape up any bitter, burnt bits into your delicious, sweet-tart-and-creamy fruit curd. Make your own decisions on that front.
 
[4] You know how you can test jam/jelly for done-ness by seeing if the drop run together before gloobing off the end of the spoon? This is the same idea. It’s a bit like the Cold Plate Test, but using your (typically hot) stirring implement. Basically, you slide a spoon through the mixture and give it a good tap on the side of the pot to get rid of any excess. If the back of the spoon stays well coated upon doing this, then you’re probably good to go.