Very Fine Imperatrice Plum Marmalade

Instructions

1. Weigh six pounds of the fruit when it is quite ripe, but before the frost has touched it.
2. Give each plum a cut as it is thrown into the preserving-pan, and when all are done boil them from thirty-five to forty minutes, taking out the stones as they rise to the surface, when they are quite detached from the flesh of the fruit.
3. Draw back the pan from the fire, stir in two pounds of good sugar beaten to powder, and boil the preserve quickly for fifteen minutes.
4. The imperatrice plum is of itself so sweet that this proportion of sugar makes with it a very rich preserve.
5. Proportions: Imperatrice plums (without the stalks) 6 lbs.: boiled 35 to 40 minutes. Sugar 2 lbs. (added after the stones are out): 15 minutes.
6. Note: Some slight trouble would be avoided by pressing the fruit through a sieve after the first boiling; but we do not think the marmalade would be improved by being freed from the skins of the plums.