Barberry Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Cut off the black tops of 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, mix in 1½ cups of 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.
Drop the mixture onto sheets of thick white paper.
Ensure no metal touches the juice, using only a knife to remove drops from the spoon.
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
- Supply the tart fruit flavour and the pulp and juice that form the drops.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart juice and helps the mixture thicken and set into firm drops.
The step that matters
Keep metal away from the juice. Barberry juice is tart and acidic, and metal can react with acid, discolouring the drops and giving them an off flavour. Using only a knife to lift drops from the spoon avoids this.
“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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