Let the cherries be ripe, freshly gathered, and the finest that can be had; cut off half the length of the stalks, and drop them gently into clean dry quart bottles with wide necks; leave in each sufficient space for four ounces of pounded white sugar-candy (or of brown, if better liked); fill them up entirely with the best French brandy, and cork them closely: the fruit will not shrivel if thus prepared. A few cherry, or apricot kernels, or a small portion of cinnamon, can be added when they are considered an improvement.
BAKED COMPÔTE OF APPLES.
(Our little lady’s receipt.)
Put into a wide Nottingham jar, with a cover, two quarts of golden pippins, or of the small apple which resembles them in appearance, called the orange pippin (this is very plentiful in the county of Kent), pared and cored, but without being divided; strew amongst them some small strips of very thin fresh lemon-rind, throw on them, nearly at the top, half a pound of good Lisbon sugar, and set the jar, with the cover tied on, for some hours, or for a night, into a very slow oven. The apples will be extremely good, if not too quickly baked: they should remain entire, but be perfectly tender, and clear in appearance. Add a little lemon-juice when the season is far advanced.
Apples, 2 quarts; rind, quite small lemon; sugar, 1/2 lb.: 1 night in slow oven; or some hours baking in a very gentle one.
Obs.—These apples may be served hot as a second course dish; or cold, with a boiled custard poured round or over them. They will likewise answer admirably to fill Gabrielle’s pudding, or a vol-au-vent à la crême.
DRIED NORFOLK BIFFINS.
The Norfolk biffin is a hard and very red apple, the flesh of the true kind being partially red as well as the skin. It is most excellent when carefully dried; and much finer we should say when left more juicy and but partly flattened, than it is when prepared for sale. Wipe the apples, arrange them an inch or two apart, and place them in a very gentle oven until they become so much softened as to yield easily to sufficient pressure to give them the form of small cakes of less than an inch thick. They must be set several times into the oven to produce this effect, as they must be gradually flattened, and must not be allowed to burst: a cool brick oven is best suited to them.
NORMANDY PIPPINS.
To one pound of the apples, put one quart of water and six ounces of sugar; let them simmer gently for three hours, or more should they not be perfectly tender. A few strips of fresh lemon-peel and a very few cloves are by some persons considered agreeable additions to the syrup.