Raspberry Preserves

Ingredients

• a pound of sugar
• a pound of berries

Method

1. 1

   Strew sugar over raspberries and let sit for 2 hours.

2. 2

   Boil rapidly for 20 minutes and jar while hot.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 3 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 114. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

a pound of sugar to one of fruit, unless you prefer to cook it down to a jam, when half a pound of one is enough to go with a pound of the other. Sugar always goes farther in pre- serving if the fruit is cooked alone for a while, and the sugar added later. To Preserve Clingstone Peaches. For a pink preserve choose the finest white Heath va- riety, but for a rich, gold -colored one the juicy yellow VIRGINIA COOKERY-BOOK, 241 Bort. Pare the peaches nicely, and, if skilful enough in the use of a penknife, simply extract the stone and leave them whole ; otherwise halve them. Have their weight of pounded sugar and sprinkle it over them as they are put into a china bowl. If you like the flavor, crack a few stones, take the kernels, blanch them as you would al- monds, and scatter them through the peaches. Let them stand two or three hours. Put them in a kettle, add a little water, and let the peaches remain until thoroughly scalded. Take them out with a ladle, draining off the sirup ; should there not be enough to cover the peaches, add a little water. Boil and skim the sirup, return the fruit, and simmer them gently until they are clear. N.B. — If well cooked, three-quarters of a pound of sugar to the pound will keep peaches, and be even bet- ter, as the preserve is then less cloying and retains more of the flavor of the fruit. Peach Jam. By all means choose yellow, soft peaches, and use white sugar, when the jam will be of a beautiful golden color. Scald and mash the fruit well, after peeling and cutting it up small, as it will greatly expedite matters. This is the most trying of all preserves to make, on account of the incessant spitting and spattering, unless the fire is kept very low all the time; and even then there is no rest from ceaseless stirring and watching. But, for all that, it is so good that few house-keepers spare themselves the trouble. Prepare for the conflict by providing yourself with a pair of very long gauntlets and an equally formi- dable stirrer, which should be a long wooden paddle, and then stand as far off as you can. Those who have often- est performed the task will be the least apt to laugh at these directions as absurd. We hear that stirrers such as 11 243 VIRGINIA COOKERY-BOOK. we speak of may be found at furnishitig stores, with han- dles inserted at right-angles. If so, by all means provide yourself with one. Stir and cook the mashed fruit alone for one hour, then add the sugar in the proportion of half a pound to a pound, and in another hour, unless you have a large kettleful, the task should be done. If the fruit is not mashed previously and you attempt over ten pounds at once, we have seen persons toil over a sputtering kettle for half a day and come off with well-burnt hands besides. QuiNCB Pbesbbybs. Yearly this fruit seems to be growing in popular esti- mation, so that we may hope to see it improved by culti- vation. The wormy, defective character of most in mar- ket calls for the utmost exercise of patience on the part of the house-keeper. Unlike almost every other fruit, the quince is unfit to preserve when freshly plucked, and must be laid by on shelves to mellow and become fra- grant. Wipe them off clean, and put them whole into a large kettle, where they must be parboiled in plenty of water and kept covered over. When sufficiently softened take the quinces out and set them where they will cool as fast as possible. Pare and core them nicely. Have some whole and some in slices. Put them back into a portion of the water in which they were parboiled and cook them until you can pass a straw through them with ease ; then put them on dishes to cool and acquire some firmness. Take as much of the water in which they were boiled as you think will be sufficient to cover them when the sugar is added, and make a sirup of one pound of sugar to one pound of fruit ; boil it, and when clarified put in as many of the quinces as can cook at once without being crowded and broken to pieces. Cover for a while with a large plate (it makes them light -colored) and let them VLBGINIA COOKMRT'BOOK. 343 boil slowly until they are clear. Every now and then take them out of the kettle and lay them singly on dishes to cool, while other pieces take their place in the kettle ; by-and-by put them back, to cook more, while the others cool, and so exchange until all are done equally and be- come of a beautiful red hue. By covering the kettle with a lid they remain yellow, but are really not nearly so pretty a preserve. Let the sirup boil a while after the quinces are taken out of it, and most likely it will jelly and look beautiful, filling the place of the cores in those that were left whole. Pbab Pbeserves. One pound of fruit, one pound of sugar ; pare off the peelings thin. Make a nine sirup of nearly one pint of water and one pound of sugar, and when clarified by boil- ing and skimming put in the pears and stew gently until clear. Choose rather pears like the Sickle for preserving, both on account of the flavor and size. A nice way is to stick a clove in the blossom end of each pear, for this fruit seems to require some extraneous flavor to bring out its own piquancy. Another acceptable addition to pear preserves may be found instead by adding the juice and thinly-pared rind of one lemon to each five pounds of the fruit. If pears are hard and tough parboil them till ten- der before beginning to preserve, and from the same water take what you need for making their sirup. If you can procure only large pears to preserve cut them into halves, or even slices, so that they can get done more quickly, and lose nothing in appearance either. Raspbbbry Pbbsbbves. The red Antwerp raspberry is deliciously fragrant, and makes a pretty preserve by strewing a pound of sugar 344 VIRQINIA COOKERY-BOOK. through a pound of berries, leaving them for two hours to draw juice, then putting them on in a preserving-pan over a brisk fire and letting them boil rapidly for just twenty minutes. Put them hot into half - pint glasses, cover first with brandy-papers, shut down the lid close, and they will keep nicely. For jam allow only half as much sugar as fruit. Cook the fruit half an hour alone, and half an hour after the two are combined, and there is no jam superior to it. Some put a third part of the fruit in red currants, and re- gard it as an improvement to raspberry jam. The Eng- lish, so-called, or Philadelphia purple raspberry, are also of very fine flavor when made into either jam or preserves by the above directions. Strawberry Preserves.

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