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Preserve Gooseberries Whole

Preserves whole gooseberries by boiling them in sugar syrup and making a jelly from the strained juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Preserve Gooseberries Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Remove the black eye from the gooseberries.

  2. Scald the gooseberries in a pot of water over heat, covering but not boiling.

  3. Shake the gooseberries in cold water.

Make the syrup

  1. Clarify the sugar with 1 pint of water for every pound of sugar.

  2. Place the gooseberries in a preserving pan and add the syrup.

  3. Set over low heat and let them boil gently until the sugar has absorbed.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Cover with white paper.

  6. Let sit overnight.

  7. Take the gooseberries out of the syrup and boil the syrup until it thickens.

  8. Skim the syrup and return it to the gooseberries.

  9. Simmer gently until it ropes.

  10. Let cool.

  11. Cover with paper.

Finish in glasses

  1. Prepare a jelly with strained gooseberry water and sugar.

  2. Once the jelly is cold, pour it over the gooseberries in glasses.

  3. Cover with wet paper.

  4. Dry the top.

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

Gooseberries
Hold their shape and form the preserved fruit itself.
Double refined sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as a thick syrup, preserves it by drawing out water.
Water
Dissolves the sugar into the syrup used to clarify and cook the fruit.

The step that matters

Simmering the syrup until it ropes. Sugar syrup must reach a high enough concentration to thicken and form a rope-like thread; too little cooking leaves it too thin to preserve the fruit, while overcooking can crystallise the sugar.

“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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