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Warranted Canned Strawberries

A method for preserving strawberries in syrup with brandy, canned for long‑term storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Warranted Canned Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 4 pounds of white sugar and 1 teacup of cold water in a kettle.

  2. Boil until clear.

Cook the berries

  1. Add 4 quarts of strawberries to the kettle.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes, keeping them covered with syrup without stirring.

  3. Remove the berries with a small strainer or skimmer and place them in a crock.

  4. Boil the syrup for an additional 10 minutes.

  5. Pour the syrup over the berries.

Can and store

  1. When cool, fill the cans with the berries and syrup, adding 1 tablespoon of brandy on top of each can.

  2. Screw on the lids tightly and store in a dry, dark place.

  3. If fermentation occurs after 2-3 weeks, place the cans in a boiler with cold water, loosen the lids, and boil for a short time.

  4. Remove the cans, tighten the covers, and the berries will keep for over a year.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

White sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, dissolved into syrup, helps preserve the berries.
Strawberries
Provide the fruit that is cooked and preserved in the syrup.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and its alcohol adds some protection against spoilage.

The step that matters

Boil the berries without stirring. Stirring breaks the fruit apart and makes the berries mushy, so keeping them covered with syrup and leaving them undisturbed helps them hold their shape and stay evenly coated.

“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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