Cherry Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Stone the cherries and save the juice that escapes.
Pour the cherry juice over the sugar and let it dissolve.
Cook and seal
Put the mixture on the fire and boil for about 15 minutes.
Add the cherries and boil steadily for 1 hour.
Seal in glass jars.
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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit, flavor, and bulk of the preserve, and pectin-bearing pulp that helps it set.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the preserve and, through its high concentration, helps preserve it and thicken it as it cooks.
The step that matters
Boiling the cherries for 1 hour at a steady boil. Sugar and fruit must reach a high enough concentration through sustained boiling for the mixture to gel and keep. Too little cooking leaves a runny preserve that may spoil, while steady boiling keeps the sugar concentrating evenly.
“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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