Name: Syrup for Preserving
Ingredients: 3 pounds sugar; 1 quart water; fruit (pound for pound with sugar)

Syrup for Preserving

Ingredients

3 pounds sugar
1 quart water
fruit (pound for pound with sugar)

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine 3 pounds of sugar and 1 quart of water in a pot and boil until it forms a syrup.

Prepare the fruit

In a preserving kettle, layer the fruit and sugar, using equal weights of each.
Heat the mixture until the sugar melts, then boil for 25 minutes.
Remove the fruit with a skimmer and fill jars three-quarters full.

Fill and seal

Boil the syrup for an additional 5 minutes, then pour it over the fruit in the jars.
Seal the jars while hot.

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

Sugar: Sweetens the fruit and, with heat, helps preserve it by drawing out moisture.
Fruit: Provides the flavor and texture of the preserved product.

“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.