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APRICOT JAM, or Marmalade

A historical recipe from Mrs. Beeton's Dictionary of Every-Day Cookery The "All About It" Books, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary).

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A historical recipe

Mrs. Beeton's Dictionary of Every-Day Cookery The "All About It" Books, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary). Project Gutenberg eBook #50191.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards. Its words name: preserving or pickling. Check current food-safety guidance before following this.

  • Preserving. Old preserving methods may not make food safe to keep. Use current tested guidance.

Ingredients 2 ingredients

  1. 1 lb. of sugar
  2. 10 lbs. of fruit

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. Ingredients.—To every lb.
  2. of ripe apricots, weighed after being skinned and stoned, allow 1 lb.
  3. of sugar.
  4. Mode.—Pare the apricots, which should be ripe, as thinly as possible, break them in half, and remove the stones.
  5. Weigh the fruit, and to every lb.
  6. allow the same proportion of loaf sugar.
  7. Pound the sugar very finely in a mortar, strew it over the apricots, which should be placed on dishes, and let them remain for 12 hours.
  8. Break the stones, blanch the kernels, and put them with the sugar and fruit into a preserving-pan.
  9. Let these simmer very gently until clear;
  10. take out the pieces of apricot singly as they become so, and, as fast as the scum rises, carefully remove it.
  11. Put the apricots into small jars, pour over them the syrup and kernels, cover the jam with pieces of paper dipped in the purest salad-oil, and stretch over the top of the jars tissue paper, cut about 2 inches larger and brushed over with the white of an egg: when dry, it will be perfectly hard and air-tight.
  12. Time.—12 hours, sprinkled with sugar;
  13. about ¾ hour to boil the jam.
  14. Average cost.—When cheap, apricots may be purchased for preserving at about 1_s.
  15. 6_d.
  16. per gallon.
  17. Sufficient.—10 lbs.
  18. of fruit for 12 pots of jam.
  19. Seasonable.—Make this in August or September.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Mortar and pestle
  • Chef's knife
Source Public domain in the USA
Credit

From Mrs. Beeton's Dictionary of Every-Day Cookery The "All About It" Books, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #50191 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50191). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.