Use none but porcelain, or good bell-metal kettles for preserves and jellies. If the latter, clean thoroughly just before you put in the syrup or fruit. Scour with sand, then set it over the fire, with a cupful of vinegar and a large handful of salt in it. Let this come to a boil, and scour the whole of the inside of the kettle with it. Do not let your preserves or anything else stand one moment in it after it is withdrawn from the fire; fill the emptied kettle instantly with water and wash it perfectly clean, although you may mean to return the syrup to it again in five minutes. By observing these precautions, preserves and pickles made in bell-metal may be rendered as good and wholesome as if the frailer porcelain be used.
Use only fine sugar for nice preserves. Moist or dark sugar cannot be made to produce the same effect as dry white.
Do not hurry any needful step in the process of preserving. Prepare your fruit with care, weigh accurately, and allow time enough to do your work well. Put up the preserves in small jars in preference to large, and, when once made, keep them in a cool, dark closet that is perfectly dry. Keep jellies in small stone china jars, or glass tumblers closely covered. You can procure at most china and glass stores, or house-furnishing establishments, metal covers with elastic rims for these, which can be used from year to year.
Cover jellies and jams with tissue paper, double and wet with brandy, pressed closely to the conserve before you put on the lid, or paste on the thick paper. Examine your shelves frequently and narrowly for a few weeks to see if your preserves are keeping well. If there is the least sign of fermentation, boil them over, adding more sugar.
If jellies are not so firm after six or eight hours as you would have them, set them in the sun, with bits of window glass over them to keep out the dust and insects. Remove these at night and wipe off the moisture collected on the under sides. Repeat this every day until the jelly shrinks into firmness, filling up one cup from another as need requires. This method is far preferable to boiling down, which both injures the flavor and darkens the jelly.
Preserved Peaches. ✠
Weigh the fruit after it is pared and the stones extracted, and allow a pound of sugar to every one of peaches. Crack one-quarter of the stones, extract the kernels, break them to pieces and boil in just enough water to cover them, until soft, when set aside to steep in a covered vessel. Put a layer of sugar at the bottom of the kettle, then one of fruit, and so on until you have used up all of both; set it where it will warm slowly until the sugar is melted and the fruit hot through. Then strain the kernel-water and add it. Boil steadily until the peaches are tender and clear. Take them out with a perforated skimmer and lay upon large flat dishes, crowding as little as possible. Boil the syrup almost to a jelly—that is, until clear and thick, skimming off all the scum. Fill your jars two-thirds full of the peaches, pour on the boiling syrup, and, when cold, cover with brandy tissue-paper, then with cloth, lastly with thick paper tied tightly over them.
The peaches should be ready to take off after half an hour’s boiling; the syrup be boiled fifteen minutes longer, fast, and often stirred, to throw up the scum. A few slices of pineapple cut up with the peaches flavor them finely.
Preserved Pears
Are put up precisely as are peaches, but are only pared, not divided. Leave the stems on.