Gooseberries Preserved Whole
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Remove the tops and stems from the gooseberries, then wash and dry them.
Weigh the gooseberries and use an equal weight of sugar.
For each pound of sugar, measure ½ cup of water.
Make the syrup and soak
In a pot, combine the sugar and water, then boil and skim until clear.
Place the gooseberries in a bowl and pour the boiling syrup over them.
Cover the berries with a plate to keep them submerged in the syrup and let sit overnight.
Cook and jar
The next day, transfer the fruit and syrup to the pot and gently boil until the gooseberries look clear.
Cool the gooseberries in the pot, then pack them into glass jars, ensuring to exclude air.
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 that is preserved and set in the sugar syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, at this high concentration, helps preserve it by drawing out water.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar to form the syrup that surrounds and penetrates the berries.
The step that matters
Keeping the gooseberries submerged overnight. Fruit exposed above the syrup can dry out, darken, and spoil. Covering the berries with a plate keeps them under the syrup so the sugar can slowly penetrate and preserve them evenly.
“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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