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Dessert

Gooseberries Preserved Whole

Whole gooseberries are preserved in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Gooseberries Preserved Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the tops and stems from the gooseberries, then wash and dry them.

  2. Weigh the gooseberries and use an equal weight of sugar.

Make the syrup and soak

  1. In a pot, combine the sugar and water, then boil and skim until clear.

  2. Place the gooseberries in a bowl and pour the boiling syrup over them.

  3. Cover the berries with a plate to keep them submerged in the syrup and let sit overnight.

Cook and pack

  1. The next day, transfer the fruit and syrup to the pot and gently boil until the gooseberries look clear.

  2. Cool the gooseberries in the pot, then pack them into glass jars, ensuring to exclude air.

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

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit that is preserved and becomes tender and clear in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at this high ratio, helps preserve it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Boiling the gooseberries the second day. Gentle boiling should soften the fruit and clear it without bursting the skins. Boiling too hard breaks the berries apart and makes the syrup cloudy, so keep the simmer gentle.

“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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