Juice of the shepherd’s bullace and imperatrice, or other red plum, 4 lbs.: 15 to 20 minutes. Sugar, 3 lbs.: 8 to 12 minutes. Or juice of bullaces and sugar, equal weight: 20 minutes.
Obs.—After the juice has been poured from the plums they may be stoned, pared, weighed, and boiled to a paste; then six ounces of sugar added to the pound, and the boiling continued until the preserve is again very dry; a small portion of the juice should be left with the fruit for this.
VERY FINE IMPERATRICE PLUM MARMALADE.
Weigh six pounds of the fruit when it is quite ripe, but before the frost has touched it; give each plum a cut as it is thrown into the preserving-pan, and when all are done boil them from thirty-five to forty minutes, taking out the stones as they rise to the surface, when they are quite detached from the flesh of the fruit. Draw back the pan from the fire, stir in two pounds of good sugar beaten to powder, and boil the preserve quickly for fifteen minutes. The imperatrice plum is of itself so sweet that this proportion of sugar makes with it a very rich preserve.
Imperatrice plums (without the stalks) 6 lbs.: boiled 35 to 40 minutes. Sugar 2 lbs. (added after the stones are out): 15 minutes.
Obs.—Some slight trouble would be avoided by pressing the fruit through a sieve after the first boiling; but we do not think the marmalade would be improved by being freed from the skins of the plums.
TO DRY IMPERATRICE PLUMS.
(An easy method.)
Put them into jars, or wide-necked bottles, with half a pound of good sugar, rolled or pounded, to twice the weight of fruit; set them into a very cool oven for four or five hours; or, if more convenient, place them, with a little hay between them, in a pan of cold water and boil them gently for rather more than three hours. Leave them in the syrup for a few days, and finish them as directed for the drying of other fruits. Tie a bladder over the necks of the jars or bottles before they are placed in the pan of water, and fasten two or three folds of paper over the former, or cork the bottles when the fruit is to be baked. The sugar should be put in after the fruit, without being shaken down; it will then dissolve gradually, and be absorbed by it equally.
To each pound of plums, 8 ounces pounded sugar: baked in cool oven 4 or 5 hours, or steamed 3 hours.