Barberry Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
Cut off the black tops from the barberries.
Roast the fruit over a fire until soft enough to pulp through a sieve into a bowl.
Set the bowl in a saucepan of water or on a hot hearth and stir until thick.
Make the drops
Once cold, add 1½ pounds of pounded and sifted sugar for every pint of pulp.
Beat the sugar and juice together for 2½ hours for a small batch or 3½ hours for a large batch.
Ensure the mixture is not too runny or too thick by adjusting sugar as needed.
Drop the mixture onto sheets of white thick paper, sized like store-bought drops.
Dry the drops in a dry room, avoiding metal contact with the juice.
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 fruit flavour and the pulp that forms the body of the drops.
- Double-refined sugar
- Sweetens the pulp and, once beaten and dried, gives the drops their firm, set structure.
The step that matters
Beating the sugar and juice. Sugar must be fully dissolved and beaten in for the right length of time. Too little beating leaves the mixture runny, and too much stiffens it, so the drops may not set properly.
“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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