A Queens Delight | Page 9

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 of Plate till they be cold; then take a skillet of fair water, and when the water boils take your Apricocks one after another in a spoon, and dip them in the water first on one side, and then on the other; not letting them go out of the spoon: you must do it very quick, then put them on a piece of plate, and dry them in a Stove, turning them every day; you must be sure that your Stove or Cupboard where you dry them, the heat of it be renewed three times a day with a temperate drying heat untill they be something dry, then afterwards turn once as you see cause.
Conserves of Violets