Gooseberry Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Place the gooseberries in a large porcelain-lined kettle with just enough water to prevent burning.
Simmer gently until the skins burst and the juice flows freely.
Prepare a flannel jelly bag and ladle the fruit into it, allowing it to drip without squeezing.
Once the juice has dripped through, measure it and return it to a clean kettle.
Make the jelly
For each cup of juice, add a cup of granulated sugar.
Boil the mixture vigorously for about 10 minutes, skimming off any scum that rises.
To test for jellying, pour a few drops of the juice onto a saucer set in ice water.
Once it shows signs of jellying, remove the kettle from heat.
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 juice and natural pectin that allow the jelly to set.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm by binding water and pectin.
The step that matters
Testing for jellying before removing from heat. Boiling too briefly leaves the jelly runny, while boiling too long can make it stiff or cloudy. A cold saucer test shows when pectin and sugar have reached the set point, so the cook stops at the right moment.
“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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