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Dessert

To Preserve Barberries

This recipe preserves barberries by boiling them with sugar and water.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the fresh barberries clean from the stalks.

  2. Weigh the barberries and use the same weight of loaf sugar.

Cook

  1. Place them in a jar and set in a kettle of boiling water until the sugar melts and the barberries are soft.

  2. The next day, transfer to a preserving pan and boil for 15 minutes.

Store

  1. Put them in jars and store in a dry, cool place.

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

Barberries
Provide the tart fruit flavour and the body of the preserve as they soften.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in equal weight, helps preserve it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Melting the sugar in the water bath. The sugar must fully dissolve and the barberries must soften before the next day's boil. Undissolved sugar can leave grainy crystals, and firm fruit will not give a good texture.

“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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