Gooseberry Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick over the gooseberries, removing stems and blossoms.
Cook the preserves
Dissolve the sugar in water and bring to a boil.
Add the gooseberries to the boiling sugar.
While cooking, add 1 teaspoon of baking soda for every 10 pounds of fruit.
Skim the mixture well and cook until it thickens.
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
- Gooseberries
- Supply the fruit and natural pectin that help the preserves set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the preserves and draws water out of the fruit, helping them keep and thicken.
- Baking soda
- Raises the pH, which helps the green fruit hold its color and firmness while cooking.
The step that matters
Cook until it thickens. Pectin and sugar form a gel only when enough water has evaporated and the mixture reaches the right concentration. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while cooking too long can make it stiff and dull. Skimming foam keeps the final texture clear.
“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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