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Apricot Preserve
Peel and stone some moderately ripe apricots; put them at night in a deep jar between layers of crushed loaf sugar. Next morning pour over them some white currant juice, or white wine, and place the jar in a large saucepan of water, which must be kept boiling until the sugar is completely dissolved; then take the saucepan off the fire and let it get cold. Place the fruit and syrup in a preserving-pan, and boil very gently until the fruit is tender. Allow half a pint of juice and a pound and a half of sugar to every pound of fruit. Time to simmer, forty minutes.
A two-stage preserve: an overnight sugar cure, then a gentle water-bath dissolve before the fruit ever meets direct heat. That sequence is the whole point — it firms the apricot halves so they stay in pieces rather than collapsing into jam.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold as a solid cone, broken and crushed for use. Plain granulated white sugar is the direct substitute, weight for weight; no need to crush anything.
- The measurementsPer pound of fruit: 1½ lb sugar and half an Imperial pint of juice, which is 10 fl oz, or about 1¼ US cups. The recipe does not say whether the pound is weighed before or after peeling and stoning.
- White currant juiceWhite currants are hard to find outside a garden or a farmers' market. They were used for pectin and acid without staining the pale fruit; white wine is the recipe's own alternative, and a dry one works. Redcurrant juice will tint the preserve pink.
- The jar in the saucepanThis is a bain-marie, not canning. Stand the jar on a folded cloth or a trivet so it does not sit on the pan floor, and keep the water at a steady boil only until the sugar has gone into solution.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy pan with plenty of surface area for evaporation. Use stainless steel or enamel; aluminium reacts with the fruit acid.
- Forty minutesForty minutes of simmering is on the long side for apricots. Watch the fruit rather than the clock: pull the pan when the pieces are translucent and tender but still holding shape, then reduce the syrup separately if it is thin. Setting point for the syrup is 220F.
- PeelingModerately ripe apricots peel much more easily after 30 seconds in boiling water and a plunge into cold. Underripe fruit will fight the peeler and gives a mean flavour.
- Yield and storageThe recipe gives no instructions for sealing or storage; for keeping at room temperature, follow current water-bath canning guidance for the jar size, or simply refrigerate and use within a month.
The recipe demonstrates a technique rather than just a flavour: the overnight maceration in dry sugar draws water out of the fruit by osmosis and replaces it with syrup, so the apricot halves firm up and survive boiling intact. That distinction — preserve, where the fruit stays whole, versus jam, where it is broken down — mattered in Victorian households, and a well-made apricot preserve was a display item as much as a store cupboard staple, used to line tarts and glaze cakes. The call for white currant juice or white wine rather than water reflects the same concern for appearance: both add the acid and pectin that help a set without darkening pale golden fruit. Apricots reached British kitchens from walled gardens and glasshouses in a short late-summer season, which is why a book of this period gives so much space to putting them up.