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Preserve

Preparing Fruits for Preserving

This recipe lists boiling times and sugar amounts for various fruits to preserve them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the fruit

  1. Boil cherries for 5 minutes.

  2. Boil raspberries for 6 minutes.

  3. Boil blackberries for 6 minutes.

  4. Boil plums for 10 minutes.

  5. Boil strawberries for 8 minutes.

  6. Boil whortleberries for 5 minutes.

  7. Boil pie plant, sliced, for 10 minutes.

  8. Boil small sour pears whole for 30 minutes.

  9. Boil Bartlett pears in halves for 20 minutes.

  10. Boil peaches for 8 minutes.

  11. Boil whole peaches for 15 minutes.

  12. Boil pine apples, sliced, for 15 minutes.

  13. Boil Siberian or crab apples whole for 25 minutes.

  14. Boil sour apples, quartered, for 10 minutes.

  15. Boil ripe currants for 6 minutes.

  16. Boil wild grapes for 10 minutes.

  17. Boil tomatoes for 20 minutes.

Add sugar

  1. Add sugar according to the following: 6 ounces for cherries, 4 ounces for raspberries, 6 ounces for blackberries, 4 ounces for field blackberries, 8 ounces for strawberries, 4 ounces for whortleberries, 10 ounces for quinces, 8 ounces for small sour pears, 8 ounces for wild grapes, 4 ounces for peaches, 6 ounces for Bartlett pears, 6 ounces for pine apples, 8 ounces for Siberian or crab apples, 10 ounces for pie plant, 8 ounces for plums, 6 ounces for sour apples, and 8 ounces for ripe currants.

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

Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by binding water and slowing spoilage.

The step that matters

Add sugar according to the following. Each fruit has its own sugar amount. Sugar binds water and helps preserve the fruit, and the right ratio affects how the fruit sets and keeps. Too little sugar weakens preservation, while too much makes the result overly sweet.

“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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