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Plain Canned Berries

A simple method for preserving small berries in sealed containers.

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 and cook

  1. Remove stems or hulls from the berries.

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

  3. Bring to a boil, skim well, and add sugar to taste (omit for pies).

  4. Boil for five minutes.

Can and seal

  1. Fill glass, stone, or tin cans with the hot berries.

  2. Seal with putty unless using self-sealing cans.

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
Supply the fruit, flavour and juice that the finished canned berries are made from.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and softens the tartness of the berries.

The step that matters

Sealing the cans. A tight seal keeps air and microbes out of the cans, so the berries keep. A loose seal lets the contents spoil. Check each seal before storing.

“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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