Strawberry Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the berries
Hull the strawberries.
Wash them if sandy. Drain well.
Weigh the berries. Use an equal weight of sugar.
Macerate overnight
In a porcelain-lined preserving kettle, layer sugar and strawberries. Finish with a thick layer of sugar on top.
Cover the kettle. Let the berries sit overnight in the sugar.
Cook and jar
The next morning, place the kettle over low heat without disturbing the contents.
Gently boil the berries until they look clear. Skim off any scum that rises.
Once clear, remove the kettle from heat. Let it cool, keeping it covered.
Transfer the berries to glass jars. Place a round of white paper soaked in brandy over each jar. Seal airtight.
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
- Strawberries
- Provide the fruit, which softens and turns clear as it cooks in the syrup.
- Sugar
- Draws moisture out of the berries to form syrup and acts as a preservative.
The step that matters
Gently boil the berries until they look clear. Boiling too hard breaks the berries apart and can cloud the syrup. Gentle heat lets the sugar penetrate the fruit so it keeps its shape while the syrup thickens.
“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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