Cherry Kisel

Name: Cherry Kisel Recipe: Fresh or Frozen Cherries
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Pitted cherries 400 g; Water 2 l; Sugar 2 tbsp, plus more to taste (27 g); Potato or corn starch 4 heaping tbsp (70 g went into 2 l); Room-temperature boiled water 150 ml (to dissolve the starch)

☆ Rate it

1 h 30 mins

How do you make cherry kisel?

Cherry kisel cooks only briefly: 400 g of pitted cherries go into 2 l of boiling water for just 3–4 minutes, then the juice they released with sugar over an hour is added. The starch (4 heaping tbsp in 150 ml of room-temperature boiled water) is left to swell, strained and poured into the boiling kisel in a thin stream while stirring. About 70 g of starch thickens 2 l; once it boils again, the kisel stays on very low heat for 2 minutes at most.

When I was a kid, in any season of the year and especially on holidays, my grandma and my mom always treated me to homemade cherry kisel.

This tradition has survived to this day. No important family celebration goes by without this drink. A fresh, warm, sweet cherry dessert with a just-baked bun or a poppy seed pastry.

Before potatoes “arrived” here, kisel was made from oats. When potato starch production began, fruit and berry kisels appeared. And only somewhere in fairy tales do milk rivers flow between kisel banks.

Cherry kisel is a sweet dessert, similar to cherry jelly. It is made from fresh, dried or frozen fruits and berries, juices, syrups, jam or milk. The only must-have in kisel is starch, or something else that thickens it.

The drink has antiseptic properties and is a good remedy for inflammation of the respiratory tract.

Kisels are quite nourishing thanks to the starch they are made with. They are very good for various stomach problems, since they coat the stomach lining and protect it. I read somewhere that starch-based kisels with berries or fruit are an excellent source of vitamins. The amount of starch in the drink can make it anything from jelly-like to almost liquid.

One of my brightest memories of early childhood is a fresh poppy seed pastry and a cup of warm cherry kisel…

Ingredients

10-12 servings

Pitted cherries 400 g
Water 2 l
Sugar 2 tbsp, plus more to taste (27 g)
Potato or corn starch 4 heaping tbsp (70 g went into 2 l)
Room-temperature boiled water 150 ml (to dissolve the starch)

Step-by-step recipe

Turn on cook modeKeeps your screen from turning off while the recipe is open

Cherries

In season, of course, kisel is made with fresh cherries, with the pits removed. You may ask: why remove the pits? I’ll answer: kids are kids… They will either swallow a pit or break a tooth on it. Pitted cherries also cook better. Out of season, frozen cherries are used. People freeze cherries in early summer, or, like me, buy ready-made fresh-frozen pitted cherries at the store. By the way, they most often come in a very convenient 400 g pack.
If the cherries are fresh-frozen, they need to be thawed. It’s best to do this naturally, ideally by moving the container of cherries from the freezer to the fridge.
Whatever kind of cherries you use, sort them: throw away any spoiled or rotten ones. Make sure there are no pits or stems left, this is important.
Cover the cherries with sugar and leave for 1 hour so the cherry juice dissolves the sugar.
The amount of sugar is entirely up to your taste. To start, add 2 tbsp of sugar (27 g) per 400 g of cherries, then if you like you can sweeten the drink further while cooking.
Stir the cherries in the sugar from time to time so the juice is released. Pour the juice and sugar that has collected into a cup.

Cooking

In a pot, bring 2 l of water to a boil over high heat. Add the cherries to the boiling water and cook for 3–4 mins.
Pour in the cherry juice with sugar that was released earlier.
Add more sugar to taste.

Starch

The amount of dissolved starch determines how thick the kisel will be, so you may not need to use all of it: in the end, for 2 l of dessert I used 70 g of starch and got the thickness I wanted.
Put 4 heaping tbsp of potato or corn starch in a cup, add 150 ml of boiled water at room temperature and stir. Let the starch stand in the water to swell a little. Starch dissolves in water very easily. Be sure to strain it through a tea strainer so the drink doesn’t “delight” you with lumps later.
Bring the pot with the cherries back to a boil.
Stir the diluted starch (it settles to the bottom) and pour it into the boiling juice in a thin stream, stirring constantly and vigorously.
The starch will immediately start to make the kisel thick and viscous. How much diluted starch you add is purely by eye. The thickness of the drink is up to you.
Keep stirring and bring the cherry kisel to a boil. Simmer over very low heat for no more than 2 mins, then remove from the heat right away.

Serving

Serve hot, warm or chilled.
Cherry kisel can be drunk hot. It’s very tasty, and a friend of mine likes it piping hot. I prefer it slightly warm. It’s also delicious when chilled in a cellar or the fridge, and it quenches thirst very well in summer.
And one more thing, treat yourself: a fresh cinnamon bun or a poppy seed pastry, good cookies (plain sweet biscuits are best), and a cup of cherry kisel.

Calories and macros

35 kcal

Serving ≈ 260 g

Protein1 g6% of kcal
Fat0 g3% of kcal
Carbs8 g91% of kcal

100 g14 kcalProtein 0.2 gFat 0 gCarbs 3 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

Enjoyed the recipe? Pick me as a preferred source on Google, and you'll see my recipes more often in search. Choose on Google →

How did you like this recipe?

Thanks for rating!