Cookery: Sourballs
British Red

Well, the making has moved past the pickles, chutneys and fruits and we are on to home made sweets now.

This one is “acid drops” in the UK or, I believe “sourballs” in the US

You will need

1lb of granulated sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice
¼ pint of water
1 teaspoon of tartaric acid
½ teaspoon of cream or tartar
A shake of confectioners / icing sugar

Put the granulated sugar, cream of tartar and water into a heavy steel pan

Use a low heat to melt al the ingredients until dissolved and then boil fast until you get a clear, slightly yellow tinged liquid. Squeeze your lemon and bung in half a teaspoon of juice.

Pour the liquid onto a baking sheet and sprinkle on the tartaric acid

Mix the tartaric acid in with the point of a knife

When the mixture has nearly set, slice into squares and form each square into a round. Put the round onto a plate sprinkled with icing sugar and when done, sieve some more icing sugar over the sweets.

Leave to cool and harden overnight and store in an airtight jar.

BTW, if anyone wonders what all this has to do with "survival" my view is this. The time will come again if we want sweets, tinned fruit or sauces that we will have to make them. They may not be needed for grubbing out an existence, but to me, I like the idea of a world where we can again use chutneys and sweets as trade goods, gifts and luxuries. I can also store sugar at a silly cheap price and use it later for preserving, chutneys, sweets and brewing. Odd ingredients are these days cropping up in multiple uses. Tartaric acid is a wine makers ingredient and cream of tartar is of course used in baking. Learning these skills of starting from cheap basic ingredients flexibly, means we can produce all manner of items from basic, long life dry goods rather than stockpiling less flexible "finished items".

BACK TO TOP