Bottled Red Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries and syrup
Remove the stalks from the cherries and place them in wide‑mouthed bottles.
Dissolve the sugar in the water to make a syrup.
Fill the bottles about three‑quarters full with the syrup.
Seal and heat
Cork the bottles, securing the corks with wire or string.
Place the bottles upright in a copper pot and fill with cold water up to their necks.
Gradually heat the water to a boil, then remove from heat.
Let the fruit sit in the copper until the next day.
Finish and store
Remove the bottles, clean them, and cover the mouths with bottle‑wax.
Pack the bottles in straw with the corks facing down and store in a dry place.
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
- Fine kentish cherries
- Provide the fruit that is preserved and flavoured by the syrup.
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar to make the syrup that fills the bottles.
The step that matters
Gradually heat the water to a boil. Heating slowly lets the bottles and fruit warm evenly, reducing the risk of cracking glass. Sealing and heating gently helps the contents stay 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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