APRICOT JAM or MARMALADE

Ingredients

• To every lb. of ripe apricots
• weighed after being skinned and stoned
• 1 lb sugar

Instructions

1. Pare the apricots, which should be ripe, as thinly as possible, break them in half, and remove the stones.
2. Weigh the fruit, and to every lb. allow the same proportion of loaf sugar.
3. Pound the sugar very finely in a mortar, strew it over the apricots, which should be placed on dishes, and let them remain for 12 hours.
4. Break the stones, blanch the kernels, and put them with the sugar and fruit into a preserving-pan.
5. Let these simmer very gently until clear;
6. take out the pieces of apricot singly as they become so, and, as fast as the scum rises, carefully remove it.
7. Put the apricots into small jars, pour over them the syrup and kernels, cover the jam with pieces of paper dipped in the purest salad-oil, and stretch over the top of the jars tissue-paper, cut about 2 inches larger and brushed over with the white of an egg: when dry, it will be perfectly hard and air-tight.