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Syrup (very delicious)
INGREDIENTS. - 4 lbs. of cherries, 3 lbs. of sugar, 1 pint of white-currant juice. AVERAGE COST, for this quantity, 3s. 6d.
Let the cherries be as clear and as transparent as possible, and perfectly ripe; pick CHERRY JAM. off the stalks, and remove the stones, damaging the fruit as little as you can.
Make a syrup with the above proportion of sugar, mix the cherries with it, and boil them for about 15 minutes, carefully skimming them; turn them gently into a pan, and let them remain till the next day. then drain the cherries on a sieve, and put the syrup and white-currant juice into the preserving-pan again. Boil these together until the syrup is somewhat reduced and rather thick, then put in the cherries, and let them boil for about five minutes; take them off the fire, skim the syrup, put the cherries into small pots or wide-mouthed bottles; pour the syrup over, and, when quite cold, tie them down carefully, so that the air is quite excluded.
TIME.-15 minutes to boil the cherries in the syrup; 10 minutes to boil the syrup and currant-juice; 5 minutes to boil the cherries the second time.
SEASONABLE. - Make this in July or August.
Despite the bare title, this is whole cherries suspended in a thick fruit syrup — closer to a French cerises au sirop than to jam. The stray "CHERRY JAM" in the middle of the text is a caption from an adjacent woodcut, not part of the method.
- The hinge: two short boilings, not one long oneThe overnight rest and the second five-minute boil exist so the fruit stays whole and plump while the syrup thickens separately. Boiling the cherries continuously until the syrup sets will collapse them into jam, which is precisely what the recipe is trying to avoid.
- White-currant juiceThis supplies the pectin and the acid; white currants may also have been preferred to red because they do not tint the syrup, though the recipe does not say so. Press gently heated white currants through a jelly bag — allow about 2 lb of fruit for a pint of juice. Redcurrant juice will serve instead, at some cost to clarity.
- Quantities in modern terms4 lb cherries is roughly 1.8 kg before stoning; 3 lb sugar is 1.35 kg; a pint here is the imperial 20 fl oz, so about 570 ml of currant juice. The yield depends on how far the syrup is reduced.
- Which cherries'Clear and transparent' probably points to a firm, pale-fleshed dessert cherry rather than a dark Morello, though Beeton does not name a variety. Modern sweet varieties work; sour cherries soften faster, so watch the first boil closely.
- StoningA hand cherry-stoner does far less damage than a knife and is worth the small outlay for this quantity. Work over a bowl and add any escaped juice to the syrup.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy, non-reactive pan — the width matters more than the depth, since evaporation is what thickens the syrup. Avoid unlined copper in prolonged contact with acidic fruit.
- Sugar ratio and keepingAt three parts sugar to four parts fruit this sits below the concentration that makes a preserve shelf-stable on its own. Fill hot into hot sterilised jars, seal at once rather than "when quite cold", and process in a boiling water bath, or simply keep the jars in the refrigerator and use them within a couple of months.
- SkimmingThe scum is protein and air, and it will cloud the finished syrup. Skim at the surface with a wide spoon rather than stirring it back in.
- ServingSpoon over rice pudding, ice cream or a plain sponge, or use the syrup alone in soda water. The cherries also do well beside cold duck or game.
Cherries preserved whole in their own syrup were a fixture of the mid-Victorian still-room, made in the narrow July–August window when English orchard fruit — especially from the Kentish cherry grounds that supplied London — came in all at once. The white-currant juice is the giveaway of a careful cook: currants are among the most pectin-rich soft fruits, and the white sort has the advantage of helping a preserve set firmly without tinting it. Beeton gives the cost of the batch as 3s 6d; the direction to tie the pots down "so that the air is quite excluded" reflects a period when covers were paper, bladder or waxed cloth, and mould was the constant enemy of the preserve cupboard.