Original White House Cookbook

Select apples that are rather tart and highly flavored; slice them without paring ; place in a porcelain preserving kettle, cover with water, and let them cook slowly until the apples look red. Pour into a colander, drain off the juice, and let this run through a jelly-bag ; return to the kettle, which must be carefully washed, and boil half an hour ; measure it and allow to every pint of juice a pound of sugar and half the juice of a lemon ; boil quickly for ten minutes. The juice of apples boiled in shallow vessels, without a particle of sugar, makes the most sparkling, delicious jelly imaginable. Red apples will give jelly the color and clearness of claret, while that from light fruit is like amber. Take the cider just as it is made, not allowing it to ferment at all, and, if possible, boil it in a pan, flat, very large and shallow. GRAPE JELLY. Mash well the berries so as to remove the skins ; pour all into a preserving kettle and cook slowly for a few minutes to extract the juice ; strain through a colander, and then through a flannel jelly-bag, keeping as hot as possible, for if not allowed to cool before putting again on the stove the jelly comes much stiff er; a few quince seeds boiled with the berries the first time tend to stiffen it; measure the juice, allowing a pound of loaf sugar to every pint of juice, and boil fast for at least half an hour. Try a little, and if it seems done, remove and put into glasses. FLORIDA ORANGE JELLY. Grate the yellow rind of two Florida oranges and two lemons, and squeeze the juice into a porcelain-lined preserving kettle, adding the juice of two more oranges, and removing all the seeds ; put in the grated rind a quarter of a pound of sugar, or more if the fruit is sour, and a gill of water, and boil these ingredients together until a rich syrup is formed ; meantime, dissolve two ounces of gelatine in a quart of warm water, stirring it over the fire until it is entirely dissolved, then add the syrup, strain the jelly, and cool it in molds wet in cold water. CRAB-APPLE JELLY. The apples should be juicy and ripe. The fruit is then quartered, the black spots in the cores removed, afterward put into a preserving kettle over the fire, with a teacupful of water in the bottom to prevent burning ; more water is added as it evaporates while cooking. When boiled to a pulp, strain the apples through a coarse flannel, then proceed as for currant jelly. PEACH JELLY. Pare the peaches, take out the stones, then slice them ; add to them about a quarter of the kernels. Place them in a kettle with enough water to cover them. Stir them often until the fruit is well cooked, then strain, and to every pint of the juice add the juice of a lemon ; measure again, allowing a pound of sugar to each pint of juice ; heat the sugar very hot, and add when the juice has boiled twenty minutes; let it come to a boil and take instantly from the fire. ORANGE SYRUP. Pare the oranges, squeeze and strain the juice from the pulp. To one pint of juice allow one pound and three-quarters of loaf sugar. Put the juice and sugar together, boil and skim it until it is cream; then strain it through a flannel bag and let it stand until it becomes cool, then put in bottles and cork tight.