You can make a delicious home-canned syrup from strawberries for waffles, crêpes, ice cream, etc.
You can cut this recipe in half, or double it, depending on how much juice you have to work with.
We’ve given directions for using sugar, honey, or liquid stevia. As it is made with Pomona pectin, you can use many other sweeteners — check with them for any special directions.
See also: Strawberry Sauce (a thick sauce with the fruit pulp still in it)
The recipe
Jar size choices: Either 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) OR quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 2 x quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars
Headspace: 1 cm (¼ inch)
Processing time: Either size jar 10 minutes. Adjust time for altitude when over 300 metres / 1000 feet.
Using LIQUID STEVIA? See separate instructions further down in recipe notes.
SUGAR or HONEY as per below.
Strawberry Syrup
Ingredients
- 500 ml strawberry juice (2 cups / 16 oz)
- 1 teaspoon calcium water
- 50 g sugar (To taste. 50 to 200 g / ⅓ cup to 1 cup / 3 to 8 oz) OR 50 to 125 ml honey (¼ cup to ½ cup / 2 to 4 oz OR 1 to 2 teaspoons liquid stevia)
- 1 teaspoon Pomona pectin
Instructions
- Put juice in pot along with calcium water.
- Put the pot on the stove and begin heating it.
- Mix sugar or honey with pectin powder, add to pot. Stir it in till all dissolved.
- Bring to a boil, and let boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Skim any surface scum off OR if desired strain again one last time through a jelly bag but don't let it get cold.
- Ladle hot liquid into hot jars.
- Leave 1 cm (¼ inch) headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process jars for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Nutrition
Liquid stevia directions
- Heat some of the juice to boiling in the microwave. Carefully remove, watching for surge.
- Put in a lidded jar, add pectin powder, put lid on.
- Holding the jar with oven gloves, shake well. If necessary, wait a few minutes then shake again to dissolve all. (Or you can do this in a blender, putting a towel over the lid to prevent hot surge.)
- Wait a few minutes for mixture to settle, then skim off and discard any foam.
- Put mixture in pot, add the rest of the juice, along with the calcium water and the liquid stevia.
- Bring to a boil, and let boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Skim any surface scum off OR if desired strain again one last time through a jelly bag but don’t let it get cold.
- Follow canning directions above.
Strawberry Juice
- You can purpose-make strawberry juice. Just wash, trim and mash strawberries with a little bit of water (about 4 tablespoons per 500 g / 1 lb), and heat in a pot till they give off lots of juice, then strain (jelly bag, cheese cloth or strainer.)
- 500 g (1 lb) whole, untrimmed strawberries = 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz) of strawberry juice, so you’ll want that double for the above recipe quantities
- If you happen to thaw frozen strawberries, and have a lot of juice run off, you can use that.
Recipe notes
- Because this is made with Pomona Pectin, you can double or triple the batch as desired will no ill-effect on the outcome;
- Pomona pectin comes with a small pouch of powdered calcium for you to mix with water to make calcium water;
- The pectin powder will clump if you just mix it straight into the juice; that’s why you mix it with something first;
- If you are using sugar, you can reduce the amount of sugar you use and it will not affect the set;
- Pomona suggests to use only ½ teaspoon of the pectin powder for this quantity of juice, but we found that can be too runny for our tastes — we were looking for the kind of thicker syrup people would expect on their plates with waffles, etc. Feel free to play with the quantity of pectin powder you use, raising or lowering it. Do the same to the calcium water: you want to use the same amount as you do pectin powder.
- Instead of strawberry juice, you could use the juice of Sour Blackberry, Raspberry, Sour Cherry, or Red, Black or White Currants. No added lemon juice is needed with the strawberry juice by itself or in a mixture with juices from any of the above fruits, owing to the similarly low pH of all of them. What makes this recipe safe for canning is acidity of the juice. If you want to use the juice from another fruit, check with Pomona to see if any added lemon juice is needed for safety;
- This will only keep 3 weeks after opening (store in fridge once opened), so for 2 people the 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) size jars might be perfect, as then it can all reasonably be used up in one sitting.
Recipe source
Sumberg, Mary Lou. Fruit Syrup. Blog post 2 April 2014. Accessed October 2016.
Developed following Pomona Fruit Syrup guidelines with the direct kind assistance of Connie Sumberg.
Usage suggestions
Drizzle this over anything you would normally put a syrup on.
Or, put some into a measuring cup, and mix in some vinegar (of your choice) to make a fruit vinaigrette for a salad.
Nutrition
With sugar
Per 4 tablespoons
- 138 calories, 15 mg sodium
With honey
Per 4 tablespoons
- 99 calories, 15 mg sodium
With stevia
Per 4 tablespoons
- 31 calories, 15 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
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