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Dessert

Fine Wet and Dry Sweetmeat in the Form of Hops

A sweetmeat made by threading gooseberries, fermenting, and coating with boiled syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Fine Wet and Dry Sweetmeat in the Form of Hops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Cut green gooseberries into quarters without fully dividing them.

  2. Remove all seeds from the gooseberries.

  3. Thread a needle with white thread and knot the end of the thread.

  4. String the gooseberries together, overlapping them to form hops.

Scald and ferment

  1. Place the stringed gooseberries in cold water.

  2. Let them scald for three days until they begin to ferment.

  3. Transfer the gooseberries to fresh water with a little sugar.

  4. Heat the mixture without boiling.

  5. Drain the gooseberries.

  6. Place them in an earthen pan.

Make the syrup and dry

  1. Boil a thin syrup using the last liquor and loaf sugar.

  2. Pour the syrup over the gooseberries daily for a week.

  3. Drain the syrup from the gooseberries.

  4. Dust the gooseberries with sifted sugar.

  5. Place them on a wire sieve in a warm area.

  6. Turn them daily for three to four days.

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

Green gooseberries
Provide the main fruit body that softens and becomes translucent during scalding and syrup soaking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once dissolved, helps preserve the fruit by drawing out water.
Loaf sugar
Forms the thin syrup that sweetens the fruit and coats it during the daily soaking.

The step that matters

Scalding for three days until fermentation begins. Scalding and soaking must be timed carefully, because the fruit can ferment too far and spoil. The process needs to stop once fermentation starts, and heating must stay below boiling so the gooseberries keep their shape.

“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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