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Dessert

Plain Canned Berries

A method for preserving small berries by boiling them with water and sugar, then canning in glass or stone jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Plain Canned Berries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove stems or hulls from the berries. If gathered carefully, washing is not necessary.

  2. Place the berries in a porcelain kettle on the stove and add ½ cup of water to prevent burning.

Cook

  1. Skim the mixture well and add sugar to taste, omitting it if using for pies.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

Can

  1. Fill glass or stone cans and seal with putty or plaster of Paris, unless using self-sealing jars.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Berries
Provide the main fruit, flavour and colour of the preserve.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the fruit's flavour and texture.
Water
Creates steam and a little liquid so the berries do not scorch at the start.

The step that matters

Adding the water before heating. Berries placed dry on a hot stove can scorch on the bottom before they release their juice. The added water gives a moist base that prevents burning while the fruit softens.

“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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