Prep Time: 72 hours
Cook Time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
- 8.5 pounds (4 kilos) ripe raspberries
- 10 pounds (4.5 k) sugar
Preparation:
Begin by stemming the raspberries, crushing them over a bowl with your hands as you might grapes, and setting them in the bowl in a cool place. Once the fruit begins to ferment, a process that will require about three days, stir the mixture twice daily until the cap (the skins, which will cover the liquid at first) ceases to rise through the liquid. Transfer the fruit, a ladle at a time, into a muslin bag, squeezing the bag to extract all the juice, and then filter the juice though filter paper two or more times, until the juice is crystal clear.Once you are done, you should have about 3 quarts of juice. Bring it to a boil , and add 10 pounds of powdered sugar (the kind that does not contain starch) to the pot, together with an ounce (by weight) of citric acid. Cook, stirring constantly with a spoon to keep the syrup from sticking, for two or three minutes, then transfer the syrup to sterile bottles, seal them, cool them, and store them in a cool dark place.
Use the syrup to flacor ice water or Italian ices, or over ice cream, or in cakes and such. Even over pancakes!
Variation: You can make Acetosa di Lamponi by substituting the citric acid with top quality wine vinegar, adding it to the syrup when you remove it from the fire.
Variation: If you replace the raspberries with strawberries you will obtain an excellent strawberry syrup.
Note: Italian recipes go by weight, and you should start with 6.6 pounds of juice. Since the juice will weigh slightly more than water, and 2.2 pounds of water = 1 liter, this should translate into roughly 3 quarts of juice. The weight of fruit necessary to get this volume? 7 to 8 pounds I would expect, depending upon how juicy your berries are.
