How to make raspberry cordial

Why not to cook it

The compounds that make a raspberry smell like a raspberry are volatile and heat-sensitive. Simmer the fruit and much of that aroma leaves with the steam, and what stays behind is the cooked-fruit character you find in jam — pleasant, and not the same thing.

Raspberries also give up their juice with almost no encouragement. They have very little structure, so crushing and standing does most of the work that heating would.

The trade-off is that a cold-extracted cordial is more fragile. Freezing it in portions is the sensible answer, and keeping questions belong to a food safety authority rather than to a recipe.

Cold-extracted raspberry cordial

Two days, almost all of it waiting. FoodHQ does not publish keeping times or preservative quantities for home-made cordials. Those are safety numbers rather than matters of taste, and in the UK the Food Standards Agency is the authority — follow its guidance on sterilising bottles and on storing, refrigerating and freezing what you make.

1. Put the raspberries in a bowl and crush them roughly with a fork or your hands.
2. Add sugar, roughly three-quarters the weight of the fruit, and the juice of a lemon. Stir.
3. Cover and leave in a cool place for twenty-four hours, stirring occasionally. The sugar draws the juice out and dissolves in it.
4. Strain through muslin over a bowl, pressing gently. Do not force it if you want a clear cordial.
5. If any sugar remains undissolved, warm the strained liquid gently — not to a simmer — until it goes.
6. Taste and adjust with lemon. Bottle into sterilised bottles, or freeze in portions.
7. Keep the pressed pulp: it still has flavour and is good stirred into yoghurt or a crumble.

Raspberry vinegar, from the same fruit

An old British preparation, sharp and sweet, used as a drink and as a dressing.

• Cover raspberries with white wine or cider vinegar in a bowl and leave for a few days, stirring daily.
• Strain, and pour the flavoured vinegar over a fresh batch of raspberries if you want it stronger. Traditionally this is repeated.
• Strain again, sweeten with sugar and warm gently until it dissolves.
• Bottle it. It keeps far better than a cordial because of the acidity.
• Drink it diluted, which is what a "shrub" is, or use it in a dressing.
• Excellent over duck, game or pork, deglazing the pan.
• Traditional for a sore throat, which is folklore rather than a claim FoodHQ makes.

Notes

Frozen fruit

Works very well. Freezing breaks the cells, so the juice runs immediately and no heat is needed at all.

Yield

A kilo of raspberries gives roughly seven hundred millilitres of cordial.

Dilution

One part to five or six. Raspberry is gentler than blackcurrant and needs less water.

Seeds

Strain thoroughly. Raspberry seeds are hard and settle unpleasantly in a bottle.

Colour

Bright red at first, and it darkens with time and light. Store the bottles in the dark.

Common questions