Cardamom Vanilla Cherry Jam

Last week we went down to my parents' house and picked a TON of cherries off their tree.  The first batch of jam we made was tasty but didn't really thicken up, so we thought we'd give the jam another shot with a different recipe.  When I found this cardamom vanilla cherry jam recipe, Justin and I knew that's what we wanted to try- but then our store didn't carry the low-sugar pectin called for in the recipe, so we used decided to adapt the cooked cherry jam recipe that came inside our box of pectin to include cardamom and vanilla.  I did my math a bit wrong in trying to figure out the proportions to use with 3.25 cups of cherries instead of 4 cups and the recipe turned out super cardamom flavored.  It's still a smashing success- Justin wants to use it to make a jelly roll cake- but I'd probably reduce the cardamom a bit if we decide to try the recipe again (and we do have enough cherries to try a second go at it, so we just might do that!).

Ingredients:
3-1/4 cups finely chopped cherries (the instructions specify to use a dry ingredients measuring cup for the fruit)
1/4 cup lemon juice
4-1/2 cups sugar
1 box pectin
5 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp cardamom
(1/2 tsp butter or margarine- optional)

Directions:
Add fruit, lemon juice, vanilla, cardamom, and pectin to a small stock pot.  Add butter or margarine to reduce foaming, if desired (we didn't do that).  Bring to a rolling boil (one which doesn't stop when you stir it).  Add sugar to the fruit mixture in the pot. Return to a rolling boil and boil for 4 minutes.  Remove pot from heat and skim off any foam with a metal spoon.  Ladle immediately into prepared jars, and can using the instructions that come with your canner. :)

We doubled this recipe (made 2 batches simultaneously in different pots) and ended up with a little bit more than 2 quarts plus a pint.

Update:  Originally we used 1/2 tsp cardamom, but that seemed a bit too strong of a cardamom flavor.  Redoing the recipe with 1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp ended up being just right, so I've updated the recipe to reflect the change.