Gather the finest white gooseberries, or green if you choose, when just ripe; top and tail them. To each pound put three quarters of a pound of fine sugar, and half a pint of water. Boil and clarify the sugar in the water as directed under that article, then add the fruit; simmer gently till clear, then break it, and in a few minutes put the jam into small pots.
Barberries for Tartlets.
Pick barberries, that have no stones, from the stalks, and to every pound weigh three quarters of a pound of lump sugar. Put the fruit into a stonejar, and either set it on a hot hearth or in a saucepan of water, and let them simmer very slowly till soft; put them and the sugar into a preservingpan, and boil them gently fifteen minutes.
Use no metal but silver.
Barberry Drops.
The black tops must be cut off, then roast the fruit before the fire, till soft enough to pulp with a silver spoon through a sieve into a China bason; then set the bason on a saucepan of water, the top of which will just fit it, or on a hot hearth, and stir it till it grows thick. When cold, put to every pint one pound and a half of sugar, the finest doubly refined, pounded and sifted through a lawn sieve, which must be covered with fine linen, to prevent its wasting while sifting. Beat the sugar and juice together three hours and a half if a large quantity, but two and a half for less: then drop it on sheets of white thick paper, the size of the drops sold in the shops.
Some fruit is not so sour, and then less sugar is necessary. To know if there be enough, mix till well incorporated, and then drop: if it runs, there is not enough sugar, and if it is too much it will be rough. A dry room will suffice to dry them. No metal must touch the juice but the point of a knife, just to take the drop off the end of the wooden spoon, and then as little as possible.
Ginger Drops, a good Stomachic.
Beat two ounces of fresh candied orange in a mortar, with a little sugar, to a paste; then mix one ounce of powder of white ginger with one pound of loaf sugar. Wet the sugar with a little water, and boil altogether to candy, and drop it on paper the size of mint drops.