Skip to main content
Dessert

Sun Preserved Gooseberries

Sun-preserved gooseberries are sweetened, boiled, and dried in the sun.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Sun Preserved Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Draw out the juice

  1. Combine 6 pounds gooseberries with 2 pounds sugar in a quart pan.

  2. Heat the pan on the stove and stir until the juice begins to release, then remove the pan from heat.

  3. Repeat the heating and stirring process for two more days, adding 1 pound of sugar on each of the second and third days.

Syrup and dry in the sun

  1. After the final day, remove the gooseberries from the syrup.

  2. Boil the syrup until thick, then pour it over the gooseberries.

  3. Place the gooseberries on platters to dry in the sun.

  4. Seal the preserved gooseberries after two days.

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 dried, forming the body of the finished product.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit by osmosis and concentrates the syrup, adding sweetness and helping preserve.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and a concentrated syrup resists spoilage. If the syrup is not boiled down enough, it stays too watery to preserve the gooseberries well.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes