A Queens Delight | Page 9

them into an earthen or silver dish, and boil
your syrup afterwards for a gelly, then pour it on your Plums scalding
hot, and let them stand two or three dayes, then let them be put to the
Oven after you draw your bread, so often untill your syrup be dryed up,
and when you think they are almost dry, lay them in a sieve, and pour
some scalding water on them, which will run through the sieve, and set
them in an Oven afterwards to dry.

_To preserve Cherries the best way, bigger than they grow naturally,
&c._
Take a pound of the smallest Cherries, and boil them tender in a pint of
fair water, then strain the liquor from the substance, then take two
pound of good Cherries, and put them into a preserving-pan with a lay
of Cherries, and a lay of sugar: then pour the syrup of the other
Cherries about them, and so let them boil as fast as you can with a
quick fire, that the syrup may boil over them, and when your syrup is
thick and of good colour, then take them up, and let them stand a
cooling by partitions one from another, and being cold you may pot
them up.
To preserve Damsins, red Plums or black.
Take your Plums newly gathered, and take a little more sugar than they
do weigh, then put to it as much water as will cover them; then boil
your syrup a little while, and so let it cool, then put in your Damsins or
Plums, then boil them leasurely in a pot of seething water till they be
tender, then being almost cold pot them up.
To dry Pippins or Pears.
Take your Pippins, Pears, Apricocks, pare them, and lay them in a
broad earthen pan one by one, and so rowl them in searsed Sugar as
you flower fried fish; put them in an Oven as hot as for manchet, and so
take them out, and turn them as long as the Oven is hot; when the Oven
is of a drying heat, lay them upon a Paper, and dry them on the bottom
of a Sieve; so you may do the least Plum that is.
To dry Pippins or Pears another way.
Take Pippins or Pears, and lay them in an earthen Pan one by one, and
when they be baked plump and not broken, then take them out, and lay
them upon a Paper, then lay them on a Sieves bottom, and dry them as
you did before.
To dry Apricocks tender.

Take the ripest of the Apricoks, pare them, put them into a silver or
earthen skillet, and to a pound of Apricocks put three quarters of a
pound of Sugar, set your Apricocks over your fire; stirring them till
they come to a pulp, and set the Sugar in another skillet by boiling it up
to a good height, then take all the Apricocks, and stir them round till
they be well mingled, then let it stand till it be something cold and thick,
then put it into cards, being cut of the fashion of an Apricock, and laid
upon glass plates; fill the Cards half full, then set them in your stove,
but when you find they are so dry that they are ready to turn, then
provide as much of your pulp as you had before, and so put to every
one a stove, when they are turned, (which you must have laid before) &
pour the rest of the Pulp upon them, so set them into your stove, turning
them till they be dry.
To dry Plums.
Take a pound of Sugar to a pound of Plums, pare them, scald your
Plums, then lay your Plums upon a sieve till the water be drained from
them, boil your Sugar to a Candy height, and then put your Plums in
whilst your syrup is hot, so warm them every morning for a week, then
take them out, and put them into your stove and dry them.
To dry Apricocks.
Take your Apricocks, pare and stone them, then weigh half a pound of
sugar to a pound of Apricocks, then take half that sugar, and make a
thin syrup, and when it boileth, put in the Apricocks; then scald them in
that syrup; then take them off the fire, and let them stand all night in
that syrup, in the morning take them out of that syrup, and make
another syrup with the other half of the sugar, then put them in, and
preserve them till they look clear; but be sure you do not do them so
much as those you keep preserved without drying; then take them out
of that syrup, and lay them on a piece