Quick Sweet Pickles
Submitted by meldodan
Quick sweet pickles for canning, eight pounds of cucumbers in a sugar-vinegar brine spiced with allspice, celery seed, and mustard seed. A big-batch summer canning project.
YIELD
7 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
20 minREADY
40 minThese are properly canned sweet pickles, the kind that line pantry shelves through winter and pop up at every Sunday dinner. The recipe handles eight pounds of pickling cucumbers at a time, sliced or stripped, salted and ice-bathed for crispness, then packed into jars with a hot sweet-spiced vinegar brine before being water-bath processed for shelf stability.
The spice combination is classic American sweet-pickle territory. Celery seed adds savory depth, whole allspice brings warm-aromatic notes, and mustard seed contributes a faint sharp bite. With 4½ cups of sugar to 3½ cups vinegar, these lean firmly toward the sweet end of the pickle spectrum (think bread-and-butter pickles’ sweeter cousin).
The optional pickling lime variation is what produces those bakery-counter-firm pickles. Soaking the cucumber slices in a calcium hydroxide solution before brining strengthens the cell walls so they stay crisp through the canning process. It’s an old-school technique that takes 24+ hours but gives serious crunch.
Pro Tips
- Cut 1/16 inch off the blossom end of every cucumber as the recipe specifies. The blossom end contains enzymes that soften pickles during storage.
- Use canning or pickling salt, not table salt. Iodine in regular salt darkens pickles and makes brine cloudy.
- For pickling lime: rinse and resoak the cukes three times in fresh water as the recipe directs. Skipping this leaves residual lime that can interfere with the canning process.
- Wait the full 4-5 weeks before opening jars. Sweet pickles need time for the spice flavors to fully penetrate; rushed pickles taste flat.
Variations
- Add 2 slices of raw onion to each jar before filling with cucumbers as the recipe suggests for a more complex flavor.
- Sub apple cider vinegar for half the white vinegar for a fruitier, less sharp brine.
- Reduce the sugar to 3 cups for a less-sweet, more all-purpose pickle that works on sandwiches and burgers.
Ingredients
Directions
*(for use in variation below for making firmer pickles)
May be canned as either strips or slices.
Procedure: Wash cucumbers.
Cut 1/16-inch off blossom end and discard, but leave ¼ inch of stem attached.
Slice or cut in strips, if desired.
Place in bowl and sprinkle with ⅓ cup salt. Cover with 2 inches of crushed or cubed ice.
Refrigerate 3 to 4 hours.
Add more ice as needed.
Drain well.
Combine sugar, vinegar, celery seed, allspice, and mustard seed in 6-quart kettle.
Heat to boiling. Hot pack--Add cucumbers and heat slowly until vinegar solution returns to boil. Stir occasionally to make sure mixture heats evenly. Fill sterile jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Raw pack--Fill jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Add hot pickling syrup, leaving ½-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process according to the recommendations in Table 1 or use the low-temperature pasteurization treatment. Variation for firmer pickles: Wash cucumbers. Cut 1/16-inch off blossom end and discard, but leave ¼ inch of stem attached. Slice or strip cucumbers. Mix 1 cup pickling lime and ½ cup salt to 1 gallon water in a 2 to 3-gallon crock or enamel-ware container. Caution: Avoid inhaling lime dust while mixing the lime-water solution. Soak cucumber slices or strips in lime water solution for 12 to 24 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove from lime solution and rinse and resoak 1 hour in fresh cold water. Repeat the rinsing and resoaking two more times. Handle carefully because slices or strips will be brittle. Drain well. Storage: After processing and cooling, jars should be stored 4 to 5 weeks to develop ideal flavor. Variation: Add 2 slices of raw whole onion to each jar before filling with cucumbers. Table 1.
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