Garden Strawberry Preserves
- 3 cups crushed berries
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 2-quart non-aluminum saucepan
- 5 5-ounce sterilized jars and lids, or 3 1/2-pint jars
- Paraffin
- Set the jars in a pan of water over a low burner.
- Wash berries in a bowl of cold water to make sure they are free of grit and dust.
- Remove berries by hand and place them on a clean, dry towel to drain.
- Then remove the caps and crush the berries slightly with a clean, odorless, wooden pestle or a strong coffee mug.
- Pour into a non-aluminum saucepan and set over a low flame to heat.
- Meanwhile, heat the sugar either in a double boiler or in a dish in the oven, being careful not to brown it, but making sure it becomes very hot (about 10 minutes in a 350 oven).
- Now pour the hot sugar over the berries, turning the burner up while stirring the sugar around.
- The cooking should be as brisk as possible without scorching; it should take about 9 minutes in all.
- As soon as the preserves begin to boil up, a scum will rise on the surface; skim it off right away with a wooden or silver spoon.
- It is much better to skim while its rapidly boiling, because that seems to cause the scum to remain in a mass and its easy to dip it out without getting too much of the syrup.
- After 9 minutes of rapid cooking, pour the preserves into the hot jars, filling to about 1/8 inch from the top.
- Lift the jars out onto a dry surface to cool.
- When cold, carefully melt paraffin and pour into the filled jars.
- When paraffin is cool, put on the lids and seal.
berries, sugar, nonaluminum saucepan, lids, paraffin
Taken from www.cookstr.com/recipes/garden-strawberry-preserves (may not work)