Red currant and cherry jam with a twist

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 500 g fresh black cherries (with stone)
• 650 g currants, red
• 1 stalk(s) vanilla pod(s), Bourbon
• 4 cl Grand Marnier
• 70 g chocolate (60-80%)
• 500 g gelling sugar (2:1)

Instructions

Working time approx. 35 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 4 minutes; Total time approx. 39 minutes

sweet with cherries and chocolate

Wash and pit the cherries (this yields about 450 g) and halve them. Wash the currants and remove the stems. Purée them with the scraped vanilla seeds (cook the peel with the berries or add it to a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar) and the Grand Marnier. Cook in a saucepan with the chocolate and sugar according to the package instructions (at a 2:1 ratio, for about 4 minutes). Don’t forget to test the setting time. This makes about five 200 ml jars of delicious jam. Tip: If my jam or jelly is too thin, I always use agartine (also known as agar-agar). It’s made from algae and has a completely neutral taste. The powder is stirred into the hot mixture and doesn’t clump! One last note: The jam is sweet, not at all sour, because of the currants. You shouldn’t use a 1:1 sugar ratio, as that will be too sweet.