Skip to main content
Main

Warranted Canned Strawberries

A method for preserving strawberries in syrup with brandy, canned for long-term storage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Warranted Canned Strawberries

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 4 pounds of sugar and 1 teacup of cold water in a kettle. Boil until the mixture is clear.

  2. Add 4 quarts of strawberries to the kettle and boil for 10 minutes, keeping them covered with syrup without stirring.

  3. Remove the berries with a small strainer or skimmer and place them in a crock.

  4. Boil the syrup for an additional 10 minutes, then pour it over the berries.

Can and store

  1. When cool, fill the cans with the berries and syrup, leaving some space at the top.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of brandy to each can, screw on the lid tightly, and store in a dry, dark place.

  3. If fermentation occurs after 2-3 weeks, place the cans in a boiler with cold water, loosen the lids, and boil for a short time.

  4. Remove the cans, tighten the lids, and the berries will keep for over a year.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Forms the syrup that sweetens the berries and helps preserve them against spoilage.
Strawberries
Provide the fruit, which holds its shape while simmering in the syrup.
Good brandy
Added to each can as a flavouring agent and to help limit fermentation.

The step that matters

Keeping the berries covered with syrup while boiling. Berries exposed above the syrup can darken, dry out and spoil, so the syrup must cover them throughout the simmer. Avoid stirring, which would break the fruit apart.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes