Nanking Cherries and burnt jelly

I was pumped to start the canning season.  Usually I make cherry jam out of our sour cherries, but there were no sour cherries to be found.  However, there was an abundance of nanking cherries.  They are smaller than a blueberry and tart.  The recipe called for 16 cups.  We picked and picked.  Even a slight rain shower greeted us that evening.  Travis was sound asleep in bed when we traveled out after the rain to pick once more.  Tyler and Dustin will both tell you that I am a slave driver.  They begged to go back inside, but I was determined to pick just one more bush, then just one more bush after that.

The next day I discovered 24 cups of these tiny plump berries.  I washed, cooked, mashed, strained the cherries to prepare for jelly making.  The kids know when I absolutely cannot be at their beck and call because that is when they act up.  MOM!!! I want juice, gold fish, pickles, apple slices, strawberries, and toast tyler demanded.  Travis holds onto my leg and big fat tears fall to the floor.  All the while, I will be sterilizing jars, watching the juice boil, and adding pectin and sugar.  As this chaos surrounds me, I smell burnt sugar.  I BURNED THE JELLY.  All 24 cups of handpicked cherries were in this batch.  I finished my project, hung my head and want to cry and scream at the same time.

 Luckily a friend made me feel better the next day.  She said my nanking jelly has notes of caramelized sugar.

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