How To Make Currant Jelly

Take the largest berries you can get; strip them off the stalks; keep back all green ones and the hard red ones at the end of the bunch; then weigh the currants, and take the same weight of single-refined sugar; clarify the sugar, and let it boil to candy, which you will know if, when it boils thick, you take some out in a spoon, and if it hangs in broad flakes it is ready; then throw the currants into the syrup, and let them boil very fast for ten minutes; then pour the jelly through a hair sieve into an earthen pan; stir the currants gently with a spoon, but do not break them, or the pulp will run through and make the jelly thick. While it is passing, clean out the pan it was boiled in; then return the jelly and warm it on the fire, but do not let it boil again; pot it up, and cover it with oiled paper. This method of making jelly preserves more of the flavour of the fruit than by running it through a bag; and it is not so apt either to candy or become fluid as by the usual way.

How To Make Jelly Without Boiling

Pick the currants carefully; squeeze the juice through a linen cloth; to every pint of juice allow a pound of refined sugar; pound, sift, and put in the oven to dry, and get as hot as it can be without melting; add it in this condition to the juice in small quantities at a time. It must be constantly stirred by another person while the sugar is being added; when it is all dissolved the jelly is ready for potting. If it is well made it will keep good three years, and is superior in colour and flavour to other boiled jellies.

Orange-Jelly

To every pound of oranges two quarts of water; cut the oranges in pieces, remove the pips and core, and put them with the oranges in a nan on the fire; let it boil till the skins are quite soft; then press it through a hair sieve, rubbing it with a spoon till no more will pass. To every pint of this pulp add one pound of sugar; boil it, removing the scum as it rises, till it jellies, which you will know by letting a little cool in a saucer; and it is ready to pot.

White Currant Jelly

Bruise the currants with the back of a wooden spoon, and run the juice through a jelly bag; to every pint of juice take a pound of double-refined sugar; clarify, and boil it to candy; then put in the currant juice; boil it ten minutes; skim well, pass through a fine sieve, and pot it.

Black Currant Jelly

Strip three pints of black currants and one of red from their stalks, and put them into a jar with half a pint of water; tie it close over with folds of paper; set the jar in a pan of water, and boil for twelve hours, taking care none of the water gets into the jar; add more water to that in the pan as it wastes in boiling; turn the currants when boiled on to a sieve, and bruise them well with the back of a spoon, then gather the bruised berries together, and put them into a clean bowl; pour on them a pint of water, and bruise them again; return them to the sieve, and let them drain all night; add what runs through to the rest of the juice, and for every pint take one pound of sugar, clarified and boiled to candy height; let it boil half an hour; skim as it rises, and pot.

Pine-Apple Jelly

Boil two dozen of the best common apples as for apple -jelly; pass them through a jelly bag, and to every two quarts of juice add the juice of a fine pine-apple, which you extract by cutting it into slices, and laying it for two days in fine pounded sugar; add this to the apple juice, clarify, and boil three pints of syrup to a crack; boil the refuse of the pine-apple and the juice ten minutes; pass through a jelly bag, and pot.

Apple-Jelly

Pare and core six pounds of green codlings or any juicy apples; cut them in pieces, and add a quart of water to them; boil them gently till quite mashed, stirring all the time; put this through a jelly-bag, and to a quart of this juice add three pints of clarified syrup; boil the sugar to a crack, add the apple-juice, and boil together ten minutes. Care must be taken not to boil it too much, or it becomes like treacle. Any sort of fruit may be added to this jelly, boiling the fruit whole in it, and putting it into pots while hot - such as strawberries, raspberries, cherries, etc.

Gooseberry-Jelly

Fill a stone jar with ripe gooseberries; cover the top close up with paper; set the jar in water, and boil till the gooseberries are quite tender; then pass them through a sieve, and to every pint of juice add a pound of single-refined sugar, clarified; put in the juice, and boil till it jellies, which you will easily know by letting a little cool in a saucer. Green gooseberry jelly, from unripe gooseberries, may be made in the same way.