Plum Paste Sweetmeats

Ingredients

• a pound of plums
• one pound of powdered sugar

Method

1. 1

   Simmer plums in water until soft, strain juice, pass pulp through a sieve.

2. 2

   Stir pulp over heat until dry, mix with sugar, and dry in layers.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 3 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Cassell's dictionary of cookery (1892) by Cassell & Company, page 1248. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

f a pound of lump sugar, and pour half a pint of water over them. Tie two or three folds of paper over the jar, and set it in a pan three-parts full of boil- ing water, which must be kept boiling until the plums are quite soft ; then lift the jar out, and put it aside until the next day. Press the pulp through a tamis. Crack the stones, and boil the kernels — with the thick part which will not pass the strainer, half a stick of cinnamon, and two cloves — in half a pint of water for twenty minutes. Strain the liquid into the fruit. Add a little sugar to taste, and wine— claret for red plunis, and light Rhine wine for green ones — with a little more water, if liked. Serve the fruit in a compote dish, with a slice of toast cut into dice, and thrown when cold into the fruit. Time, two days to prepare. Probable cost, 8d., exclusive of the wine. Sufficient for four or five persons. Plum. Loaf, Plain. — Put two poimds of best flour into a bowl, and mix with it half a tea-spoonful of salt, half a pound of picked and dried currants, four ounces of moist sugar, and half a nutmeg grated. Dissolve half an ounce of German yeast very gradually in three-quar- ters of a pint of lukewarm milk, in which has been dissolved four- ounces of butter or good beef dripping. Stir this into the flour, and knead it to a smooth dough. Put a cover over the bowl, and set it to rise for about an hour. Make it up into a loaf, put it into a buttered tin, and bake in a moderate oven. If preferred, a table-spoonful of solid brewer's yeast or three table-spoonfuls of baking-powder may be used instead of the German yeast. In order to ascertain whether the loaf is snfficiently baked, put a skewer into it ; if it comes out clean and dry, the cake is done. Time to bake, one horn-. Probable cost. Is. 2d. Sufiicient for a good- sized loaf. Plum Lozenges for Dessert.— Put a pound of ripe and sound Orleans plums into a jar, and place them in a saucepan of boil- ing water over the fire until they are so soft that the stones can be removed. Whilst this is being done, soften in the same way half a pound of cored and sliced apples. Turn both plums and apples into a preserving-pan. Put with them the juice of half a lemon and three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and boil quickly for three-quarters of an hour. Stir well to keep the fruit from burning. Pour the paste upon shallow dishes, and when it is cold cut it into lozenges, and dry these on a sieve before the fire. Keep them between, sheets of writing-paper in a tin box. Plum Marmalade. — Pick the stalks from the fruit, weigh it, gash it with a silver knife, and put it into a preserving-pan. Let it simmer gently until the fruit is quite soft, lift out the stones as they rise to the sur- face, and keep the plums well stii-red to pre- vent their burning. Press tlie pulp thi-ough a coarse sieve. Mix with it three pounds of powdered sugar to every four pounds of fruit, allowing for the weight of the stones, and boil gently six or eight minutes longer. Pour the marmalade into jelly-i^ots, and cover closely. Plum Paste Sweetmeats. — Put the plums into a preserving-pan with just enough water to cover them, and let them simimer until quite soft. Strain the juice from them, and pass them through a sieve. Stir the pulp over the fire until it is quite dry. Great care will be required to keep it from burning. Weigh it, and mix one pound of powdered sugar

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.