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Dessert

Damson or Any Other Fruit Syrup

A syrup made by cooking damson fruit with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Damson or Any Other Fruit Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the stalks and leaves from the damsons.

  2. Place the damsons in a pan and barely cover with water.

  3. Heat the pan and stir the fruit until it becomes pulp.

  4. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

Make the syrup

  1. Add 2½ lb of sugar for every quart of juice.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, skimming carefully.

  3. Once cooled, bottle and cork the syrup.

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

Fresh ripe damsons
Provide the main fruit flavour, tartness and natural pectin for the syrup body.
White sugar
Sweetens the juice and helps preserve the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, skimming carefully. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the juice, which helps the syrup keep. Skimming removes foam and loose pulp that could spoil the flavour or cloud the syrup.

“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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