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Apple Preserve, Good
E. Pernet.
Weigh equal quantities of good brown sugar and apples, peel, core, and cut the apples into small square pieces, make a syrup of one pint of water to three pounds of sugar, boil until pretty thick, then add the apples, the grated peel of a lemon or two, a little whole white ginger (if liked); boil until the apples are clear and begin to fall, then it will be done.
A plain equal-weight preserve: sugar and apple, pound for pound, with lemon peel and ginger for lift. The proportions are sound; only the storage advice is missing.
- The ratioEqual weights of sugar and apples. The recipe's wording puts the weighing before peeling and coring; if you prefer to weigh the prepared fruit instead, allow for roughly a quarter of the whole fruit lost to peel and core.
- Syrup stageOne pint water to three pounds sugar, boiled "pretty thick," means driving off water until the syrup runs heavy and slow off the spoon. The recipe gives no temperature; take it too far before the fruit goes in and the syrup will set hard rather than stay a preserve.
- "Good brown sugar"Nineteenth-century brown sugar was less refined than modern granulated, and its grades varied. Light brown sugar is probably the safer match here; dark brown may dominate the lemon and ginger.
- Whole white gingerDried peeled ginger root, sold in hard knobs. Two or three pieces bruised and tied in muslin, removed at the end, gives the intended warmth. Fresh ginger gives a different, sharper flavour and is not a like-for-like swap.
- Choice of appleA firm cooking apple that holds shape is what "begin to fall" assumes — the cubes should turn translucent and only just start collapsing at the edges. Bramley or similar will go to sauce well before it clears.
- Judging donenessClear fruit and a syrup that sheets off a cold spoon, as the recipe's "clear and begin to fall" implies. Timing will vary with the pan and the quantity; stir often once it thickens, since sugar at this concentration scorches quickly.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no sealing method, as was normal when preserves were poured hot and covered with paper and wax. Follow current water-bath canning guidance for shelf storage, or simply refrigerate and use within a month.
Preserves of this kind — fruit boiled pound for pound in sugar syrup — sat between jam and candied fruit, and were valued because the sugar concentration alone kept the fruit through winter without a cellar or ice. Apples were the obvious candidate in North American households: cheap, keeping well in barrels, and abundant enough that a family might put up preserve, butter, sauce and cider from the same crop. The dried white ginger and lemon peel here are the standard warming aromatics of the period; "if liked" marks ginger as a matter of household taste rather than a fixed part of the formula. The Home Cook Book (Toronto, 1877) credited recipes to named contributors, which is why this one carries E. Pernet's name — though much of the book was in fact adapted from the Chicago Home Cook Book of 1874.