When the fruit has been baked or stewed tender, as directed above, drain off the juice, skin and stone the damsons, pour back to them from a third to half of their juice, weigh and then boil them over a clear brisk fire, until they form quite a dry paste; add six ounces of pounded sugar for each pound of the plums; stir them off the fire until this is dissolved, and boil the preserve again without quitting or ceasing to stir it, until it leaves the pan quite dry, and adheres in a mass to the spoon. If it should not stick to the fingers when lightly touched, it will be sufficiently done to keep very long; press it quickly into pans or moulds; lay on it a paper dipped in spirit when it is perfectly cold; tie another fold over it, and store it in a dry place.
Bullace cheese is made in the same manner, and almost any kind of plum will make an agreeable preserve of the sort.
To each pound of fruit, pared, stoned, and mixed with the juice and boiled quite dry, 6 oz. of pounded sugar, boiled again to a dry paste.
RED GRAPE JELLY.
Strip from their stalks some fine ripe black-cluster grapes, and stir them with a wooden spoon over a gentle fire until all have burst, and the juice flows freely from them; strain it off without pressure, and pass it through a jelly-bag, or through a twice-folded muslin; weigh and then boil it rapidly for twenty minutes; draw it from the fire, stir in it until dissolved, fourteen ounces of good sugar, roughly powdered, to each pound of juice, and boil the jelly quickly for fifteen minutes longer, keeping it constantly stirred, and perfectly well skimmed. It will be very clear, and of a beautiful pale rose-colour.
Juice of black-cluster grapes: 20 minutes. To each pound of juice, 14 oz. good sugar: 15 minutes.
Obs.—We have proved this jelly only with the kind of grape which we have named, but there is little doubt that fine purple grapes of any sort would answer for it well.
ENGLISH GUAVA.
(A firm, clear, bright Jelly.)
Strip the stalks from a gallon or two of the large kind of bullaces called the shepherd’s bullace; give part of them a cut, put them into stone jars, and throw into one of them a pound or two of imperatrice plums, if they can be obtained; put the jars into pans of water, and boil them as directed at page [497]; then drain off the juice, pass it through a thick strainer or jelly-bag, and weigh it; boil it quickly from fifteen to twenty minutes; take it from the fire, and stir in it till dissolved three-quarters of a pound of sugar to the pound of juice; remove the scum with care, and boil the preserve again quickly from eight to twelve minutes, or longer should it not then jelly firmly on the skimmer. When the fruit is very acid, an equal weight of juice and sugar may be mixed together in the first instance, and boiled briskly for about twenty minutes. It is impossible to indicate the precise time which the jelly will require, so much depends on the quality of the plums, and on the degree of boiling previously given to them in the water-bath. When properly made it is remarkably transparent and very firm. It should be poured into shallow pans or small moulds, and turned from them before it is served. When the imperatrice plum cannot be procured, any other that will give a pale red colour to the juice will answer. The bullaces alone make an admirable preserve; and even the commoner kinds afford an excellent one.