Take apples, of a light green, without any spot or redness, and rather sour; cut them in quarters, taking out the cores, and put them into a quart of water; let them boil to a pulp, and strain it through a hair-sieve, or jelly-bag. To a pint of liquor take a pound of double-refined sugar; wet your sugar, and boil it to a thick syrup, with the white and shell of an egg: then strain your syrup, and put your liquor to it. Let it boil again, and, as it boils, put in the juice of a lemon and the peel, pared extremely thin, and cut as fine as threads; when it jellies, which you may know by taking up some in your spoon, put it in moulds; when cold, turn it out into your dish; it should be so transparent as to let you see all the flowers of your china dish through it, and quite white.
Crab Jam or Jelly.
Pare and core the crabs; to fifteen pounds of crabs take ten pounds of sugar, moistened with a little water; boil them well, skimming the top. When boiled tender, and broke to the consistency of jam, pour it into your pans, and let it stand twenty-four hours. It is better the second year than the first. The crabs should be ripe.
Pippin or Codling-Jelly.
Slice a pound of pippins or codlings into a pint of clear spring water; let them boil till the water has extracted all the flavour of the fruit; strain it out, and to a pint of this liquor take a pound of double-refined sugar, boiled to sugar again; then put in your codling liquor; boil it a little together as fast as you can. Put in your golden pippins; boil them up fast for a little while; just before the last boiling, squeeze in the juice of a lemon; boil it up quick once more, taking care the apples do not lose their colour; cut them, and put them in glasses with the jelly. It makes a very pretty middle or corner dish.
Apples and Pears, to dry.
Take Kirton pippins or royal russets, golden pippins or nonpareils; finely pare and quarter the russets, and pare and take out the core also of the smaller apples. Take the clean tops of wicker baskets or hampers, and put the apples on the wickers in a cool oven. Let them remain in till the oven is quite cold: then they must be turned as you find necessary, and the cool oven repeated till they are properly dry. They must stand some time before they are baked, and kept carefully from the damp air. The richer the pears the better; but they must not be over-ripe.
Apricots in Brandy.
The apricots must be gathered before they are quite ripe, and, as the fruit is usually riper on one side than the other, you must prick the unripe side with the point of a penknife, or a very large needle. Put them into cold water, and give them a great deal of room in the preserving-pan; and proceed in the same manner as directed for peaches. If they are not well coloured, it is owing to an improper choice of the fruit, being too ripe or too high coloured, provided the brandy be of the right sort.