Delicious Red Currant Jam

Instructions

1. This, which is but an indifferent preserve when made in the usual way, will be found a very fine one if the following directions for it be observed; it will be extremely transparent and bright in colour, and will retain perfectly the flavour of the fruit.
2. Take the currants at the height of their season, the finest that can be had, free from dust, but gathered on a dry day.
3. Strip them with great care from the stalks, weigh them, and put them into a preserving-pan with three pounds of the best sugar reduced to powder, to four pounds of the fruit.
4. Stir them gently over a brisk clear fire, and boil them quickly for exactly eight minutes from the first full boil.
5. As the jam is apt to rise over the top of the pan, do not fill it more than two-thirds; if this precaution is not sufficient to prevent it, lift the pan from the fire and hold it away for an instant.
6. To many tastes, a still finer jam may be made with an equal weight of fruit and sugar boiled together for seven minutes.
7. Keep great exactness with respect to the time, as both the flavour and the brilliant colour of the preserve will be injured by longer boiling.
8. Proportions: Red currants (without stalks), 4 lbs.; fine sugar, 3 lbs.: boiled quickly, 8 minutes. Or, equal weight fruit and sugar: 7 minutes.