THE CONFECTIONER.
1. The Confectioner makes liquid and dry confects, jellies, marmalades, pastes, conserves, sugar-plums, ice-creams, candies, and cakes of various kinds.
2. Many of the articles just enumerated, are prepared in families for domestic use; but, as their preparation requires skill and practice, and is likewise attended with some trouble, it is sometimes better to purchase them of the confectioner.
3. Liquid and dry confects are preserves made of various kinds of fruits and berries, the principal of which are,—peaches, apricots, pears, quinces, apples, plums, cherries, grapes, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, and raspberries. The fruit, of whatever kind it may be, is confected by boiling it in a thick clarified syrup of sugar, until it is about half cooked. Dry confects are made by boiling the fruit a little in syrup, and then drying it with a moderate heat in an oven. The ancients confected with honey; but, at present, sugar is deemed more suitable for this purpose, and is almost exclusively employed.
4. Jellies resemble a thin transparent glue, or size. They are made by mixing the juice of the fruits mentioned in the preceding paragraph, with a due proportion of sugar, and then boiling the composition down to a proper consistence. Jellies are also made of the flesh of animals; but such preparations cannot be long kept, as they soon become corrupt.
5. Marmalades are thin pastes, usually made of the pulp of fruits that have some consistence, and about an equal weight of sugar. Pastes are similar to marmalades, in their materials, and mode of preparation. The difference consists only in their being reduced by evaporation to a consistence, which renders them capable of retaining a form, when put into moulds, and dried in an oven.