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Apricot Jam
Pare three pounds of fresh sound apricots, halve them, and take out the stones. They should be ripe enough to halve with the fingers. Place them in a deep dish, and strew over them one pound of finely-sifted sugar. Let them remain for eight hours. Then place them with the syrup that will have oozed from them in a preserving-pan; add a few of the kernels blanched and sliced, and another pound and a half of sugar. Let them boil very gently, and, when done, put them into jars and cover closely with gummed paper. Time to boil, half an hour. Probable cost, 2s. 6d.
A classic two-stage preserve: the fruit is drawn with sugar overnight, then boiled briefly so the halves keep their shape. A few points of translation are needed.
- Skip the kernelsApricot kernels contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide when chewed or digested, and they were used here in the same way bitter almonds were, for their noyau perfume. Leave them out; a drop of almond extract gives the flavour with none of the risk.
- "Pare" and "halve with the fingers"Paring means peeling. Fully ripe apricots slip their skins after 30 seconds in boiling water and a plunge into cold, and only ripe fruit will pull apart cleanly along the seam.
- Sugar and proportionsTotal sugar is 2 1/2 lb to 3 lb of fruit, split 1 lb for the overnight maceration and 1 1/2 lb at the boil. "Finely-sifted sugar" is caster or superfine sugar, used because it dissolves into the fruit juices quickly; ordinary granulated works if given the full eight hours.
- The eight-hour restThis is the hinge of the recipe. The sugar draws out enough juice to make a syrup, so the fruit poaches rather than sticks, and the halves stay intact. Cover and leave it at cool room temperature or in the refrigerator.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy, unlined copper or stainless pan, deliberately shallow so water evaporates fast. Any wide heavy pot will do; avoid a tall narrow saucepan, which lengthens the boil and dulls the colour.
- Half an hour, and the real testThirty minutes at a gentle boil is a guide, not a rule. Go by set: 220F on a thermometer, or a spoonful wrinkling on a chilled saucer. Apricots are moderately high in pectin and acid, so a squeeze of lemon juice is useful insurance if the set is slow.
- Gummed paper is not a sealVictorian covers of gummed or brandied paper kept dust out and relied on the sugar to inhibit spoilage; mould on the surface was expected and scraped off. Fill sterilised jars and either process them in a boiling-water bath or keep them refrigerated and use within a few weeks.
- YieldAbout 4 lb of finished jam, roughly eight 8-oz jars. The "probable cost, 2s. 6d." is a period price note, not an instruction.
Cassell's belonged to the great age of the English domestic preserve, when a household with fruit trees or access to a summer market bought sugar in loaves or sifted lumps and put up jam by the pan. The two-stage method here, macerating with part of the sugar before boiling, is often said to have been the usual technique for tender stone fruit, and something like it is still associated with keeping fruit whole. The blanched kernels are a survival of an older confectionery habit: apricot, peach and cherry stones all yield a kernel tasting of bitter almond, and cooks used them to scent creams, ratafias and preserves long before commercial almond flavouring existed. The reason they have disappeared from modern recipes is the same reason bitter almonds are no longer sold for eating in most countries, the amygdalin they contain. The price note at the end, 2s. 6d., is characteristic of Cassell's, which costed nearly every dish, a practice generally taken to reflect the household's concern with domestic economy.