Name: To Preserve Barberries for Tarts
Ingredients: ½ pound barberries; ½ pound loaf sugar

To Preserve Barberries for Tarts

Ingredients

½ pound barberries
½ pound loaf sugar

Directions

Prepare

Pick the barberries from the stalks and weigh them.
Place the barberries in a jar with an equal weight of loaf sugar.

Cook and store

Put the jar in a kettle of water until the sugar dissolves and the barberries are soft.
The next day, transfer the mixture to a preserving pan and boil for 15 minutes.
Pour into jars and store in a dry 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

Barberries: Provide the tart, acidic fruit flavour that the sugar balances in the finished preserve.
Loaf sugar: Sweetens the fruit and draws water out of it, helping preserve it and thicken the mixture.

“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.