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Strawberries in Syrup

A method for preserving strawberries by processing them in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberries in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

First syrup

  1. Fill quart jars with strawberries.

  2. Pour cold syrup at 28 Beaume over the strawberries.

  3. Process the jars in boiling water for 7 minutes (quart) or 5 minutes (pint).

  4. Leave the jars in the processing tank for 5 minutes to cool gradually.

Second and third syrups

  1. Fill jars with strawberries.

  2. Pour cold syrup at 30 Beaume over the strawberries.

  3. Leave the jars overnight.

  4. Drain the syrup.

  5. Refill the jars with cold syrup at 26 Beaume.

  6. Process the jars as before.

  7. Lay the jars flat in a dark place for 20 days to allow the fruit to absorb sugar.

  8. Cover the strawberries with cold syrup at 25 Beaume.

  9. Process as above.

Finish with hot syrup

  1. Heat the stone jar.

  2. Drain the syrup.

  3. Boil the syrup.

  4. Reduce the syrup to 25 Beaume by adding water.

  5. Pour the syrup over the fruit.

  6. Leave the fruit for 1 hour.

  7. Drain the syrup.

  8. Bottle the berries.

  9. Fill jars with hot, bright syrup containing 1-3 glucose at 30 to 31 Beaume.

  10. Seal the jars while hot.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
The fruit that is preserved and holds its shape while absorbing the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, helps preserve it by drawing out water.
Glucose
Added to the hot syrup to resist crystallisation and keep the syrup smooth and clear.

The step that matters

Cooling the processed jars gradually. Moving hot jars abruptly to a cooler environment can crack the glass and shock the fruit. Leaving them in the processing tank lets the temperature fall slowly, which helps the seal form and keeps the berries intact.

“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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