Home › The Principles of Cookery › Syrup for Compotes
Syrup for Compotes
The quantity of sugar used in preparing syrup for compotes must vary with the nature of the fruit. Every acid fruit will, of course, need more sugar than luscious fruit. For a good many kinds of fruit half a pound of sugar may be boiled in three-quarters of a pint of water. Syrup thus made is not intended to keep. To make it, dissolve the sugar in the water, and boil it till clear. Remove the scum as it rises. Time to boil, about a quarter of an hour.
A plain stock syrup for poaching fruit, given in imperial measures. The proportions are a starting point rather than a rule, as the book says.
- The measurements in US termsThree-quarters of an imperial pint is 15 fl oz, or a scant 2 cups. Half a pound of granulated sugar is about 1 1/8 cups. That gives roughly a 1:2 sugar-to-water ratio by weight, which is a light syrup.
- Fifteen minutes is a long boilAt an open boil water evaporates and the syrup concentrates, so a syrup that begins light may finish thicker than intended. In practice it is enough to boil until the sugar has fully dissolved and the liquid runs clear, then judge by consistency rather than by the clock.
- Adjusting for the fruitThe instruction to vary sugar with acidity is the point of the recipe. Acid fruit such as rhubarb, gooseberries, sour cherries and unripe plums will take the sugar well above the half pound given; ripe peaches, pears and figs need less, or the syrup tastes cloying.
- The scumSkimming matters for appearance rather than safety. The froth carries impurities from the sugar and dulls the finished syrup, so lift it off with a spoon as it gathers and do not stir it back in.
- Do not stir once it boilsSugar crystals thrown up the pan side will seed the whole syrup and turn it grainy. Stir to dissolve while it heats, then leave it alone and wash the sides down with a wet pastry brush if crystals appear.
- "Not intended to keep"At this dilution the syrup is too weak to be shelf-stable, which is what the original means. Refrigerated in a clean jar it will hold a week or two; it will grow mould well before a preserving syrup would.
- YieldRoughly two cups once the dissolved sugar is accounted for, less whatever boils away.
- FlavouringThe recipe is deliberately bare. A strip of lemon or orange peel, a vanilla pod or a piece of cinnamon added while the syrup heats, and removed before the fruit goes in, is entirely in period.
Compotes — fruit poached whole or in pieces in sugar syrup, as distinct from a jam or a preserve — came into English cookery from the French kitchen and were a fixture of the Victorian dessert course, served cool in a glass dish. The entry reads as a foundation the reader is expected to return to: the syrup is given once, with proportions to be adjusted to the fruit. Household sugar of the period was bought as loaf or lump and could carry enough impurity to throw up scum, so skimming a syrup was routine rather than fussy. The distinction the recipe draws, between a syrup made to be used at once and one heavy enough to preserve fruit for months, is the same distinction any modern preserving book makes.