To Bottle Gooseberries
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Remove the tops and tails from the gooseberries.
Pack the gooseberries into wide-mouthed glass bottles, shaking them down to fit as many as possible.
Insert a cork into each bottle, but do not seal it tightly.
Bake and cool
Place the bottles in a slack oven at 300°F (150°C) for 4 to 5 hours until the gooseberries begin to shrink and juice runs.
Remove the bottles and let them cool overnight.
Seal and store
Gently hammer the corks down with the back of a small brush.
Store the bottles upright in a dry, cool place away from sunlight until needed.
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
- Slow heating softens the fruit and draws out juice that fills the bottle.
- Corks
- Loosely inserted corks let steam escape while the fruit cooks, then are pressed down to close the bottle.
The step that matters
Leaving the corks loose during baking. A tightly sealed bottle traps steam and pressure as the fruit heats, which can break the glass. Loose corks let vapour escape while the fruit softens and releases its juice, and the corks are only sealed after cooling.
“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.
You might also like
Delicate Cake246 recipes
Boiled Frosting69 recipes
Citron Cake68 recipes
Scotch Cake63 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.