[ To preserve Apricocks being ripe.]
Stone them, then weigh them with sugar, and take weight for weight, pare them and strow on the sugar, let them stand till the moisture of the apricocks hath wet the sugar, and stand in a sirrup: then set them on a soft fire, not suffering them to boil, till your sugar be all melted; then boil them a pretty space for half an hour, still stirring them in the sirrup, then set them by two hours, and boil them again till your sirrup be thick, and your apricocks look clear, boil up the sirrup higher, then take it off, and being cold put in the apricocks into a gally-pot or glass, close them up with a clean paper, and leather over all.
[ To preserve Peaches after the Venetian way.]
Take twenty young peaches, part them in two, and take out the stones, then take as much sugar as they weigh, and some rose-water, put in the peaches, and make a sirrup that it may stand and stick to your fingers, let them boil softly a while, then lay them in a dish, and let them stand in the same two or three days, then set your sirrup on the fire, let it boil up, and then put in the peaches, and so preserve them.
[ To preserve Mellacattons.]
Stone them and parboil them in water, then peel off the outward skin of them, they will boil as long as a
piece of beef, and therefore you need not fear the breaking of them; when they are boil’d tender make sirrup of them as you do of any other fruit, and keep them all the year.
[ To preserve Cherries.]
Take a pound of the smallest cherries, but let them be well coloured, boil them tender in a pint of fair water, then strain the liquor from the cherries and take two pound of other fair cherries, stone them, and put them in your preserving-pan, with a laying of cherries and a laying of sugar, then pour the sirrup of the other strained cherries over them, and let them boil as fast as maybe with a blazing fire, that the sirrup may boil over them; when you see that the sirrup is of a good colour, something thick, and begins to jelly, set them a cooling, and being cold pot them; and so keep them all the year.