To Preserve Crab Apples
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Make a syrup of a pound of sugar for a pound of fruit.
Put the apples in the syrup after skimming the syrup.
Let them boil until they are clear.
Some persons make a second syrup, and keep the first for cordial.
Preserve the peaches
Pare and cut the peaches in slices.
Make a syrup of half a pound of sugar to one pound of fruit.
Put the peaches in and let them scald.
Then take them out, put them on a flat dish, and set the syrup away.
Next day repeat the process.
Then put them in the oven, after the bread comes out, on a flat dish.
Do this till they are dry.
Pack them in jars, sprinkling sugar over each layer.
The syrup will make cordial.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, in a thick syrup, helps preserve it by drawing out moisture.
- Fruit
- Provides the main body and flavour of the preserve once cooked down in syrup.
The step that matters
Boiling the fruit until clear. Boiling in syrup must be stopped at the right point: too little cooking leaves the fruit firm and unpreserved, while too much breaks it down. Letting the fruit sit in syrup over a day lets sugar slowly penetrate and preserve it.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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