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Dessert

Gooseberry Preserve

A preserve made by cooking gooseberries with sugar and water until clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Gooseberry Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prick the gooseberries with a needle and weigh them.

  2. Measure out the same amount of sugar as the weight of the berries.

Make the preserve

  1. Cook the gooseberries in very little water until tender.

  2. Drain the berries carefully and strain the water.

  3. Add the sugar to the strained water, using 1 cup of water for every 4 cups of sugar.

  4. Cook the berries in this heavy syrup until clear and transparent.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the preserve into dry sterilized jars, adjust the rubber rings and lids, and seal tightly.

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

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and holds its shape in the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in a heavy syrup, helps preserve it and keep it clear.

The step that matters

Cook the berries in the heavy syrup until clear and transparent. Sugar must be drawn gradually into the fruit. Cooking too hard or too fast can break the berries apart or toughen them, while stopping too early leaves them opaque and less well preserved.

“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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