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Dessert

Strawberry Preserves

A sweet preserve made by cooking strawberries with sugar and water until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Strawberry Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by combining water and sugar in a large pot.

  2. Heat the syrup to 266°F (130°C).

Cook the preserves

  1. Add the strawberries to the syrup.

  2. Cook slowly until the temperature drops to about 215°F (102°C).

  3. Continue cooking until the desired density is reached.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
Provide the fruit body, flavor, and color that the preserves are built around.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, at high concentration, helps set the gel and preserve the fruit.
Water
Dissolves the sugar to form the syrup that the strawberries cook in.

The step that matters

Cooking until the desired density is reached. Sugar concentration determines how the preserves set. Cooking too little leaves them runny, while cooking too long can over-thicken them and darken the flavor. Watching the temperature drop to about 215°F helps track progress toward the set point.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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