Chokecherry Syrup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What does chokecherry syrup taste like? ›

An old-time Montana favorite, the tart, sweet 'cherry' flavor always has customers saying “it's just like grandma used to make it.” Another wilderness delight for your pancakes, French toast, and waffles.

To extract the juice, clean the cherries and pour into a large pot, adding just enough water to cover. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the fruits are soft and have released their juice, about 30 minutes. Gently strain through a jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander into a bowl.

The entire berry is rich in disease-fighting antioxidants, flavonoids, anthocyanins and proanthocyanins, each said to possess a high-capacity value at fighting against allergies, viruses and cancer-causing elements. Chokecherries also contain a high dose of quinic acid which is known to prevent urinary tract infection.

These chemicals might help protect the heart and blood vessels and reduce swelling and blood sugar levels. People use chokeberry for heart disease, athletic performance, cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and many other conditions, but there's no good scientific evidence to support these uses.

The chokecherry fruit gall midge is a tiny fly that causes direct damage to the fruit. Adults emerge from overwintering pupae in late May and lay their eggs in the flowers. Tiny yellowish-orange maggots feed on the developing fruit.

Chokecherry tea was used to treat everything from anxiety to colds, diarrhea and tuberculosis. Berries were eaten to relieve stomach pain and aid digestion. A common remedy for head colds involved grinding and smoking chokecherry bark like tobacco (Scully, 147).

Snack by eating raw, spitting out the seeds, do not eat too much or it can clog your throat and stick in your teeth. Your teeth will be blue for a little while! Boil chokecherries and remove seeds to make a pudding or syrup.

The slightly tart fruit is ripe in late July and August. Chokecherry berries were one of the main ingredients in a food commonly used by Plains Indians known as pemmican.

One way that chokecherry is different from chokeberry is that the fruit of chokecherry turns black as they mature, whereas red chokeberry fruits stay red through development. Chokeberries are also much more tart than chokecherries are. Chokecherry grows taller, up to 20 feet tall and is denser than chokecherry.

How do you remove pits from chokecherries? ›

As you smash the cherries, you want to keep scraping up the mush and bringing it to the center…then just keep smashing! The mush will be kind of gritty - you'll be able to see the darker skin and the white pits, and that's what smashes out.

Once you have processed all the berries, you can refrigerate or freeze the juice until you are ready to make your jelly or syrup. If you refrigerate the juice, make sure to use the product within a week of processing the berries.

Chokeberry is the common name given to two species of Aronia that belong to the rose family and are found in the eastern parts of North America from southern Canada to Georgia, west to Arkansas and north to Minnesota.

There are numerous similarities between elderberries and chokecherries, but a few key differences will help you differentiate between the plants. Chokecherries are members of the rose family, while elderberries are members of the honeysuckle family.

The biggest difference is that Chokecherries are bigger shrubs, and the pitted fruits are more bitter and astringent. Aronia (both red and black) are sweeter and, depending on which variety, mature to either red or black (whereas chokecherries are black).

Wild cherries usually have thinner flesh and are dry tasting. Choke cherries are sour and puckerish, they make your mouth feel dry or wooly inside. Well, the only answer I can come up with is that they taste like cherries! They range from sweet to sour depending on the cultivar.

Black cherry fruit is often bitter, while chokecherries are astringent, causing the mouth to feel dry when eaten fresh (see Astringency sidebar, p. 22). Ripe chokecherry fruit varies from bright red to almost black.

The name chokecherry is derived from the berries, which when eaten raw have an astringent, bitter taste similar to tannins in tea. This causes the mouth to pucker, thus giving the fruit its name.