(First and best Receipt.)
The barberries for this preserve should be quite ripe, though they should not be allowed to hang until they begin to decay. Strip them from the stalks, throw aside such as are spotted, and for each pound of the fruit allow eighteen ounces of well-refined sugar; boil this, with one pint of water to every four pounds, until it becomes white, and falls in thick masses from the spoon; then throw in the fruit, and keep it stirred over a brisk fire for six minutes only; take off the scum, and pour it into jars or glasses.
Sugar, 4-1/4 lbs.; water, 1-1/4 pint: boiled to candy height. Barberries, 4 lbs.: 6 minutes.
Barberry Jam. Second Receipt.—The preceding is an excellent receipt, but the preserve will be very good if eighteen ounces of pounded sugar be mixed and boiled with the fruit for ten minutes and this is done at a small expense of time and trouble.
Sugar pounded, 2-1/4 lbs.; fruit, 2 lbs.: boiled 10 minutes.
SUPERIOR BARBERRY JELLY, AND MARMALADE.
Strip the fruit from the stems, wash it in spring-water, drain, bruise it slightly, and put it into a clean stone jar, with no more liquid than the drops which hang about it. Place the jar in a pan of water, and steam the fruit until it is quite tender: this will be in from thirty minutes to an hour. Pour off the clear juice, strain, weigh, and boil it quickly from five to seven minutes, with eighteen ounces of sugar to every pound. For the marmalade, rub the barberries through a sieve with a wooden spoon, and boil them quickly for the same time, and with the same proportion of sugar as the jelly.
Barberries boiled in water-bath until tender; to each pound of juice, 1 lb. 2 oz. sugar: 5 minutes. Pulp of fruit to each pound, 18 oz. sugar: 5 minutes.
Obs.—We have always had these preserves made with very ripe fruit, and have found them extremely good; but more sugar may be needed to sweeten them sufficiently when the barberries have hung less time upon the trees.