Never use oil of lemon or essence of lemon for any flavouring. This article is now too generally made of tartaric acid, vitriol, or other drugs that render it unpalatable and unwholesome. Some of it tastes like peppermint. All lemon-flavouring should be obtained from the fruit only.
WINE JELLY.—Take three ounces of Cooper’s isinglass or gelatine, and soak it in cold water during five minutes. Then take it out and put it into a preserving kettle, and dissolve it in two quarts of boiling water. Stir into it a pound of loaf-sugar, on part of which has been rubbed off the thin yellow rind of four large lemons. Add two large sticks of cinnamon broken up, and the juice of the lemons mixed with a pint of white wine, (madeira, sherry, or malaga,) and add also the broken shells and beaten whites of four eggs. Having mixed all the ingredients well in the preserving kettle, put on the cover, set the kettle over the fire, and boil it steadily during twenty minutes. Then take it off, and let it stand five minutes or more, to settle. Pour the whole carefully into a thin flannel bag, and let it run into your jelly moulds. On no account squeeze the bag, as that will injure the clearness of the jelly.
This mode of preparing jelly with artificial isinglass saves the trouble of boiling calves’ feet the day before. It can be made in a short time.
VERY FINE APPLE JELLY.—Having cut out all blemishes, quarter half a bushel of the best pippin or bell-flower apples, without peeling or coring, and as you cut them, throw them into a pan of cold water to preserve the colour. When all the apples have been thus cut up, take them out of the water, but do not wipe or dry them. Then weigh the cut apples, and to each pound, allow a pound of the best loaf-sugar. Put them with the sugar into a large preserving-kettle and barely enough of water to prevent their burning, mixing among them the yellow rind of half a dozen lemons pared off very thin and cut into pieces. Also the juice of the lemons. When perfectly soft, and boiled to a mash, put the apples, &c., into a large linen jelly-bag, and run the liquid into moulds, if wanted for present use; and into jars if intended for keeping. Lay brandy paper on the top of each jar, and cover them closely.
PEAR MARMALADE.—Take large fine juicy pears. Pare, core, and cut them up into small pieces. Weigh the pieces; and to every two pounds allow a pound and a half of sugar, and the grated peel and juice of a large orange or lemon, adding a tea-spoonful of powdered ginger. Put the whole into a preserving-kettle and boil it over a moderate fire, till it becomes a very thick, smooth marmalade, stirring it up from the bottom frequently, and skimming the surface before each stirring. When quite done, put it warm into jars—and cover it.
For children, or for common family use, it may be made with large pound pears and brown sugar; but it always requires the acid of orange or lemon to make it palatable; pears, when cooked, having no acid of their own.