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To Preserve Purple Plums

From Mrs. Crowen's American lady's cookery book (1847).

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A historical recipe

Mrs. Crowen's American lady's cookery book, by Crowen, T. J., Mrs (1847).

United States

Known as an American recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

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

Ingredients 1 ingredient

  1. One pound of sugar

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.

Method

  1. Make a syrup of clean brown sugar, clarify it as directed in these receipts ;
  2. when perfectly clear and boiling hot.
  3. pour it over the plums having picked out all unsound ones, and stems;
  4. let them remain in the syru[) two days, then drain it off, make it boiling hot, skim it and pour it over again, let ihem remain in the syrup two days then drain it off*;
  5. make it boiling hot, skim it and pour it over again ;
  6. let them remain another day or two, then put them in a preserving kettle over the fire, and simmer gently until the syrup is reduced and thick or rich.
  7. One pound of sugar for each pound of plums.
  8. Small damsons are very fine, preserved as cherries or anv other ripe fruit ;
  9. clarity the syrup and when boiling hot put in the plums, let them boil very gently until they are cooked antl the syrup rich.
  10. Put them in pots or jars ;
  11. the next day secure as directed.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Slotted spoon
  • Colander
  • Kettle
Source not stated by archive.org
Credit

From Mrs. Crowen's American lady's cookery book (1847), printed page 204, digitised by the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/mrscrowensameric00crow_0

What was changed: Read by machine from the book's scanned text into ingredients and method. The title's capitals were tidied; spelling and scanning errors are left as they are.