Currants.
Weigh equal quantities of sugar, and fruit stripped from the stems. Boil the fruit ten minutes, stirring it often, and crushing it. Add the sugar, and boil another ten minutes. Measure the time from the minute boiling commences. This keeps till currants come again. Clean brown sugar does very well. If it is to be used up in the course of the autumn, ten or twelve ounces of sugar to a pound of fruit is enough.
Cranberries.
Pour scalding water upon them, as this will make it much more easy to separate the defective ones from the good, than if they are washed in cold water. Measure the fruit, and allow two quarts of sugar for five of fruit. Boil the cranberries till they are soft in half as much water as fruit. Stir them very often. When they are soft add the sugar, and boil gently as possible half an hour more. They are very liable to burn, and therefore should be carefully attended to. If you like cranberry sauce very sweet, allow a pound of sugar for a pound of fruit.
Cranberries keep very well in a firkin of water in the cellar, and if so kept, can be stewed fresh at any time during the winter.
Damsons.
Wash, drain, and weigh them, put them into the kettle, and add the same weight of sugar and (to six or eight pounds) a pint of water. Boil them gently but steadily an hour; press the top ones down carefully, several times. They will break some, and the pricking each one with a needle before stewing them, makes little, if any difference. But they break less than other small plums, and are more solid. The syrup gives an elegant color to a beaten white of egg, for ornamenting custards or delicate puddings.
Other small sized blue plums are preserved in the same way.
Egg Plums.