SUGAR BOILER'S ASSISTANT

serving pan nearly full, cover them with soft water and then with a sheet of paper, set them on a slow fire, let them simmer slowly for a considerable time to extract the jelly from the apple. They must not on any account be stirred about in the pan. When the virtue appears to be quite extracted from them pour them into a jelly-bag. Cut more apples as before, about half the quantity, put them into the pan, and pour over them the extract from the first apples, simmer them very slowly as before. When the essence is all extracted put them into a jelly-bag. This jelly is used in the putting up of all preserved fruits.

258.— Gooseberry Jam.

Take 7 lbs. of clean, picked, dry gooseberries, put them into your preserving pan with 1 pint of water and 7 lbs. of sifted loaf sugar. Boil over a clear fire from twenty minutes to half an hour ; when they are boiled to the consistency required take them off, put them into jars and secure them from the air as the others.

259. — Orange Marmalade.

Take 1 2 Seville and 1 2 China oranges, pare the outer skin off as thin as you can, lay it in soft water and freshen it every two hours to take out the bitterness, then pull off the white skin from the pared oranges and throw it away ; cut them across, squeeze the juice from them, and set them on the fire in the preserving pan with plenty of soft water, boil them until so soft as to pulp through a hair sieve. Then boil the outer skin equally soft. If it will not go through, beat it well in a mortar and then put it through ; add to it the other pulp and the juice. Weigh it, and to each pound allow 1 lb. 2 ozs. of sifted loaf sugar. Boil this well together, stirring it all the time, until it will retain the mark of the scraper, when it will be ready to put into jars, which must be secured from air as before.

XV. CHOCOLATE,

260. — General Directions for Making Chocolate.

Provide yourself with an iron pestle and mortar, also a stone slab of a very fine grain about two feet square, and a rolling- pin of hard stone or iron. The stone must have an opening beneath in which to place a pot of burning charcoal to heat it. Warm the mortar and pestle by placing them on a stove, or charcoal may be used, until they are so hot that you can scarcely bear your hand against them. Wipe the mortar out clean, and put any convenient quantity of prepared nuts in it, which pound until they are reduced to an oily paste into which the pestle will sink with its own weight. Add fine powdered sugar to the chocolate paste. After it has been well pounded, the sugar must be in proportion of 3 lbs. to 4 lbs. of prepared cocoa. Continue to pound it until completely mixed ; then put it in a pan and place it in the stove to keep warm. Take a portion of it and roll or grind it well on the stone slab with the roller, both being previously heated like the mortar until it is reduced to a smooth impalpable paste, which will melt in the mouth like butter when this is accomplished. Put it in another pan and keep it warm until the whole is similarly dis- posed of j then place it again on the stove, which must not be quite so warm as previously. Work it over again, and divide it into pieces of two, four, eight, or sixteen ounces each, which