I love strawberries, and I’ve tried lots of different recipes over the years. I’ve already made my typical strawberry jam and even strawberry rhubarb pie filling this spring, so I wanted to try something different with the strawberries this time. Ball has a couple different strawberry syrup recipes, but I used the one from The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving. This is a thinner syrup, not as thick as store-bought pancake syrup, but I think it’s perfect as a base for a strawberry margarita. I did omit the cinnamon stick the recipe calls for. If you were going to use the syrup strictly as a pancake or waffle syrup, that would probably be fine, but I didn’t like the thought of cinnamon in my margarita, so I left it out.

Recipe yields about 5 pints. I doubled the recipe and ended up with 9-1/2 pints.

Strawberry Syrup

3-1/2 pounds strawberries

3 cups water

1 cinnamon stick

Cheesecloth

6 cups sugar

3/4 cups light corn syrup

1/2 cup bottled lemon juice

Place first 3 ingredients in a 6-quart stainless steel or enameled Dutch oven. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally (do not boil).

Remove from heat. Line a wire-mesh strainer with 2 layers of dampened cheesecloth or a jelly bag. Place over a bowl. Pour berry mixture into strainer and let drain for 2 hours or as needed to extract 6 cups of juice. (Do not press or squeeze mixture.) Discard solids. Rinse Dutch oven.

Combine strawberry juice, sugar, and next 2 ingredients in Dutch oven, stirring until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 1 minute.

Ladle hot syrup into a hot jar, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band and adjust until fingertip tight. Place jar in boiling water canner. Repeat until all jars are filled.

Process jars 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Turn off heat, remove lid, and let jars stand 5 minutes. Remove jars and cool.

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