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Prune Marmalade
2½ lbs. large prunes 6 large apples 1/2 lb. (I cup) sugar I lemon 2 tablespoonfuls orange flower water Wash the prunes and soak them over night in cold water. Steam or stew gently until tender. Set aside until cool enough to handle; then remove the stones. Return to the fire, add the apples, pared, cored, and sliced, sugar, strained lemon juice, and orange flower water.
Cook slowly to a marmalade in a casserole, stirring occasionally that the mixture may be smooth.
Can at once.
Pumpkin
A straightforward stovetop fruit butter, despite the book's title. The only genuinely dated elements are the vessel, the flower water, and the instruction to can it.
- "Casserole" here means a potAs used here it is a lidded vessel set over direct heat rather than an oven bake-dish; the instruction to stir occasionally while cooking down points that way. Any heavy nonreactive saucepan or Dutch oven works; heavy is the point, since a thickening fruit purée scorches easily.
- Prunes"Large prunes" are dried plums with the stones in, which is why the recipe has you fish them out after cooking. Pitted prunes sold today skip that step; 2½ lb is a lot of fruit, and they will swell appreciably after soaking.
- Soaking and stewingFollow the overnight soak in cold water if the prunes are properly dry; it lets them plump before cooking. Cover them by an inch or two; simmer gently until a fork slides through, usually 20 to 30 minutes.
- ApplesSix large apples means about 3 lb. Choose a variety that breaks down — Bramley, McIntosh, or any soft cooking apple — since the pectin and the collapse are both doing work here.
- The sugar is low by preserve standardsOne cup of sugar for roughly six pounds of fruit sweetens but does not preserve. Expect a tart, dark, spoonable butter rather than a jam, and taste toward the end; prune sweetness varies a great deal.
- Orange flower waterA distillate of bitter-orange blossom, still sold in Middle Eastern groceries and baking aisles. Two tablespoons is assertive and brand strengths vary widely, so add half, taste at the end, and add the rest off the heat where the aroma survives.
- Cooking downLow heat, partial cover, and stir to the bottom of the pan every few minutes. Reckon 45 minutes to an hour and a quarter. It is done when a spoon drawn across the bottom leaves a track that does not immediately flood.
- "Can at once"Open-kettle canning — ladling hot preserve into jars and sealing without further processing — is no longer considered sound, and this mixture is too low in sugar to keep on a shelf on its own. Refrigerate it for a few weeks, freeze it, or follow a current tested water-bath process for fruit butters.
- YieldRoughly three to four pints, depending on how far you reduce it.
- The stray word"Pumpkin" at the end is the start of the next recipe in the original book, not an ingredient.
Prune marmalade belongs to a long line of thrifty winter preserves made when no fresh fruit was to be had: dried plums and stored apples were both pantry staples, and together they supply the sugar, acid and pectin a preserve needs. Distilled blossom waters such as orange flower water were standard flavourings in English preserving from the seventeenth century onward, and survived in jams, custards and sweet biscuits long after vanilla had displaced them elsewhere. "Marmalade" also long carried a broader sense than the citrus one — any fruit boiled to a thick mass — which is why a prune and apple butter can wear the name without apology.