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Dessert

Strawberry Preserves

A sweet preserve made by cooking strawberries with sugar and water until syrupy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Strawberry Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit and syrup

  1. Hull the strawberries carefully to avoid bruising them.

  2. Weigh the strawberries and for every pound, use ¾ pound of sugar.

  3. In a preserving kettle, combine the sugar and water, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  4. Boil the mixture until it reaches the consistency of good molasses.

  5. Remove from heat and gently spoon the syrup over the strawberries to saturate them without bruising.

Cook and rest

  1. Return to heat and bring to a boil.

  2. Remove the scum and let it sit overnight.

  3. Return the mixture to the kettle and heat until it just begins to boil.

  4. Let it sit for 4-5 hours.

  5. Heat again until very hot, but do not boil.

Finish and store

  1. Using a skimmer, remove the strawberries.

  2. Place them in a single layer on a china dish.

  3. Strain the syrup.

  4. Boil it once more.

  5. Return the strawberries to the syrup and heat until hot.

  6. Transfer everything to an earthenware jar and let it cool completely.

  7. Once cool, store in tumblers or glass jars.

  8. Cover with parchment paper.

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

Strawberries
Provide the fruit body and flavour that the syrup preserves and sets into the jam.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and preserves it, while helping the syrup thicken.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup that coats the fruit.

The step that matters

Saturating the fruit without bruising. Strawberries are delicate, and pieces that break release juice and pectin unevenly, leaving mushy fruit and a cloudy syrup. Gentle spooning keeps the berries whole so they hold their shape.

“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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