Fine Wet and Dry Sweetmeat in the Form of Hops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gooseberries
Cut green gooseberries in quarters and remove the seeds.
Thread a knotted piece of white thread through the end of one gooseberry.
String another gooseberry onto the thread, overlapping slightly, and continue until you have 7-8 gooseberries.
Place the gooseberry strings in cold water.
Let them sit for 3 days to ferment.
Transfer the gooseberries to fresh water with a little sugar.
Heat the mixture without boiling.
Drain the gooseberries.
Place them in an earthen pan.
Make the syrup and soak
Boil thin syrup using the last liquor and loaf sugar.
Pour the hot syrup over the gooseberries.
Repeat pouring hot syrup over the gooseberries daily for a week.
Drain the syrup.
Dry
Dust the gooseberries with sifted sugar.
Place them on a wire sieve.
Dry in a warm place for 3-4 days, turning them and changing the sieve daily.
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
- Green gooseberries
- Provide the main fruit body that becomes firm and sweet through fermenting and syruping.
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the thin syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fresh soaking water and adds sweetness to the dusted finish.
The step that matters
Heating the gooseberries without boiling. Boiling would soften the fermented fruit and break its skin, so gentle heat keeps the gooseberries intact while warming them through.
“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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