Canned Fruits
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Strew sugar over the fruit and let it stand for a few hours.
Scald the fruit with the sugar.
Fill and seal the jars
Prepare glass jars by placing them in hot water.
Fill the jars with boiling hot fruit.
Leave no air space in the jars.
Seal the jars immediately with heated tops.
Occasionally tighten the tops as the fruit cools and shrinks.
Store the jars in a dark, cool, dry place.
Make the sealing wax
For sealing, mix resin, beeswax, and tallow.
Dip corks in the melted wax.
Cool the corks in water.
Check and restore
Check the jars after one week for flaws or signs of fermentation.
Restore the rubber rings by soaking them in a mixture of 1 part ammonia to 2 parts water for 5 to 30 minutes.
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
- Sugar
- Draws moisture out of the fruit and adds sweetness, helping to preserve it.
- Resin
- Forms a hard, airtight coating when combined with wax and tallow for sealing.
- Beeswax
- Adds firmness and water resistance to the sealing mixture.
- Tallow
- Softens the sealing mixture so it spreads and adheres well to corks.
The step that matters
Leave no air space in the jars. Air left in the jar can support mold and spoilage organisms, and the fruit shrinks as it cools, so a full jar sealed while hot helps keep the contents protected.
“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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