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Dessert

Fruits Preserved with Sugar

A preserved fruit mixture made by boiling fruit with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Fruits Preserved with Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the preserves

  1. Add ½ cup of water and 1 pound of sugar to 1 pound of fruit.

  2. Boil the mixture, adding one third of the sugar at each boiling.

  3. Ensure the syrup is thin and the fruit is soft for better absorption.

Jar and store

  1. Once boiled sufficiently, transfer the preserves to clean, dry jars.

  2. Cover the jars with tissue paper smeared with egg white or dipped in brandy.

  3. Seal the jars with bladder or paper to exclude air.

  4. Store in a very dry and cool place.

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

Fruit
Provides the main bulk and flavour that the preserve is built around.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar in thirds at each boiling. Adding all the sugar at once can toughen the fruit and draw out too much water. Adding it in portions, with boiling between, lets the fruit soften and absorb sugar gradually, while the syrup thickens.

“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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