1231. To free Molasses from its sharp taste, and to render it fit to be used instead of Sugar.—Take twenty-four pounds of molasses, twenty-four pounds of water, and six pounds of charcoal, coarsely pulverized: mix them in a kettle, and boil the whole over a slow wood fire. When the mixture has boiled half an hour, pour it into a flat vessel, in order that the charcoal may subside to the bottom: then pour off the liquid, and place it over the fire once more, that the superfluous water may evaporate, and the molasses be brought to their former consistence. Twenty-four pounds of molasses will produce twenty-four pounds of syrup.
1232. To make Apple Molasses.—Take new sweet cider just from the press, made from sweet apples, and boil it down as thick as West India molasses. It should be boiled in brass, and not burned, as that would injure the flavor. It will keep in the cellar, and is said to be as good, and for many purposes better than West India molasses.
1233. To dress Chestnuts for Dessert.—Let them be well roasted, and the husks taken off. Dissolve a quarter pound of sugar in a wine-glassful of water, and the juice of a lemon. Put this and the chestnuts into a saucepan over a slow fire for ten minutes; add sufficient orange-flower water to flavor the syrup; serve in a deep dish, and grate sugar over them. To be handed round whilst quite hot.
1234. To improve Claret Wine when acid.—Place the cask on a stand for refining, put into it a quarter pound of chalk broken into small pieces. Let it remain one day, and then refine with the whites of six eggs, the shells broken, and a handful of salt; all these are to be mixed with some of the wine, and then thrown into the cask. The shells are not to be powdered, but simply crushed in the hand. The wine will be fit for bottling in two weeks. When bottled, it should be laid on the side. The bungs to be out as short a time as possible.
1235. To improve Home-made wines.—When there is a tendency to acidity in wine, add to it sugar-candy in the proportion of a pound to every four gallons; dissolve it, and put it into the cask, incorporating it well.
Poor wines may be improved by the addition of bruised raisins. If one ounce of powdered roche-alum be put into a cask of four gallons of wine, it will make it fine and brisk in ten days. Ripe medlars, or bruised mustard-seed, tied in a bag, will remove mustiness, or other disagreeable taste.