42. To make RATIFEE another Way.
Take a hundred apricocks stones, break them, and bruise the kernels, then put them in a quart of the best brandy; let them stand a fortnight; shake them every day; put to them six ounces of white sugar-candy, and let them stand a week longer; then put the liquor thro’ a jelly bag, and bottle it for use.
43. To preserve GRAPES all Winter.
Pull them when dry, dip the stalks about an an inch of boiling water, and seal the end with wax; chop wheat straw and put a little at the bottom of the barrel, then a layer of grapes, and a layer of straw, ’till the barrel is fill’d up; do not lie the bunches too near one another; stop the barrel close, and set it in a dry place; but not any way in the sun.
44. To preserve GRAPES another Way.
Take ripe grapes and stone them; to every pound of grapes take a pound of double-refined sugar; let them stand till the sugar is dissolved; boil them pretty quick till clear; then strain out the grapes, and add half a pound of pippen jelly, and half a pound more sugar; boil and skim it till a jelly; put in the grapes to heat; afterwards strain them out, and give the jelly a boil; put it to the grapes and stir it till near cold; then glass it.
45. BARBERRY CAKES.
Draw off the juice as for curran jelly, take the weight of the jelly in sugar, boil the sugar to sugar again; then put in the jelly, and keep stirring till the sugar is dissolved; let it be hot, but not boil; then pour it out, and stir it three or four times; when it is near cold drop it on glasses in little cakes, and set them in the stove. If you would have them in the form of jumballs, boil the sugar to a high candy, but not to sugar again, and pour it on a pie plate; when it will part from the plate cut it, and turn them into what form you please.
46. BARBERRY DROPS.
When the barberries are full ripe, pull ’em off the stalk, put them in a pot, and boil them in a pan of water till they are soft, then pulp them thro’ a hair-sieve, beat and searce the sugar, and mix as much of the searc’d sugar with the pulp, as will make it of the consistance of a light paste; then drop them with a pen-knife on paper (glaz’d with a slight stone) and set them within the air of the fire for an hour, then take them off the paper and keep them dry.
47. To candy ORANGES whole another Way.
Take the Seville oranges, pare off the red as thin as you can, then tie them in a thin cloth (with a lead weight to keep the cloth down) put ’em in a lead or cistern of river water, let them lie five or six days, stirring ’em about every day, then boil them while they are very tender, that you may put a straw thro’ them; mark them at the top with a thimble, cut it out, and take out all the inside very carefully, then wash the skins clean in warm water, and set them to drain with the tops downwards; fine the sugar very well, and when it is cold put in the oranges; drain the syrrup from the oranges, and boil it every day till it be very thick, then once a month; one orange will take a pound of sugar.