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To Preserve Gooseberries

A method for preserving gooseberries whole and making a jelly from the remaining berries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Preserve Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Select 3 quarts of the largest gooseberries to preserve whole.

  2. Simmer them in enough water to cover until tender, but do not let them burst.

  3. Carefully remove the whole gooseberries with a skimmer and place them in cold water.

  4. For the jelly, place the remaining gooseberries in a saucepan with ½ pint of water for each quart.

Make the jelly

  1. Boil until they break down, stirring and mashing with a spoon.

  2. Strain the mixture through a hot jelly bag to extract the juice.

  3. Measure the juice and add 1½ pounds of sugar for each pint.

  4. Dissolve the sugar in a preserving kettle with the juice, stirring frequently.

  5. Once dissolved, add the whole gooseberries and boil for 20 minutes until clear and thick.

  6. If the gooseberries threaten to break, remove them and let the jelly boil until finished.

Pack

  1. Pack the gooseberries and jelly together in glass 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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit flavour and, through their natural pectin, help the jelly set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set and keep its clear, thick texture.

The step that matters

Adding the whole gooseberries after the sugar dissolves. Boiling whole fruit too hard or too long in the syrup makes the skins split and the berries break down, so the fruit should be added once the sugar has dissolved and the jelly is near finished, with heat kept gentle enough to hold their shape.

“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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