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Dessert

To Preserve Barberries for Tarts

This recipe preserves barberries by sweetening and boiling them, then storing in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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To Preserve Barberries for Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the barberries from the stalks.

  2. In a jar, combine the barberries with an equal weight of loaf sugar.

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

Cook and store

  1. The next day, transfer the mixture to a preserving pan and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Pour the barberries into jars and store them 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 fruit flavour and tartness that the finished preserve is built around.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out its juice, helping it soften and preserve.

The step that matters

Melting the sugar in the boiling water bath. The sugar must fully dissolve and the barberries must soften before boiling. Sugar drawn into the fruit over time helps preserve it, so rushing this stage leaves the fruit firm and under-sweetened.

“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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