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To Dry Ripe Gooseberries with Sugar

A method for drying ripe gooseberries in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Dry Ripe Gooseberries with Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tops off the gooseberries, leaving the stalks intact.

  2. Remove the seeds from the gooseberries as directed for unripe ones.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Boil the gooseberries in a syrup made with 1½ cups sugar and 1 pint water until clear and tender, about 8 to 12 minutes.

  2. Place the gooseberries in cold syrup that has been used for boiling cherries or other fruits.

  3. Gradually heat the mixture, keeping it at the boiling point for a few minutes.

Soak and dry

  1. Let the gooseberries sit in the syrup for a couple of days.

  2. Drain the syrup.

  3. Simmer and skim the syrup.

  4. Pour the syrup over the gooseberries immediately after removing it from the heat.

  5. After 48 hours, drain the gooseberries and lay them out singly on plates or dishes.

  6. Place the plates in a gentle oven to dry.

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
The main fruit; cooking softens it, and it takes up syrup as it dries.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in a syrup, helps draw water out so the fruit keeps.

The step that matters

Pour the syrup over the gooseberries immediately after removing it from the heat. Hot syrup penetrates fruit more readily than cooled syrup, and sugar dissolves fully while hot. Letting the syrup cool first can slow absorption and leave the fruit unevenly sweetened.

“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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