Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Apricots, To Bottle (for Tarts in Winter time). — Choose some ripe apricots : pare, stone, and quarter them. Lay them on a dish with powdered sugar strewn over them in the proportion of two ounces of sugar to every pound of fruit. Let them remain thus for two or three hours ; then put them into wide-mouthed bottles, cover them and place them up to their necks in a saucepan of cold water. Keep them there until the water boils. Cork the bottles and wax them securely. Time to boU, half an hour. Apricots, To Candy.— Slit the fruit on one side and take out the stone, dry them separately on a dish, and cover them with crushed lump sugar. Bake them in a hot oven, and then dry them in a warm place for a few days. Apricots, To Dry (a quick and easy method). — Pare, stone, and halve the fruit, then place it in a deep stone jar. Put the jar in a saucepan of boiling water over a good tire, and keep boiling until the fruit is quite tender. Lay the apricots on a sieve, that the juice may drain away, and afterwards put them on plates. Strew sifted sugar thickly over them, and put them in a warm place to di-y, before storing them away. Time to boil the fridt, about half an hour. Apricots, To Dry.— The apricots should be taken before they are quite ripe. Scald them, draw off the skin, divide and stone them. Place them in a dish, with their weight in sugar strewn over them, and let them remain twentyfour hours. Then put the whole into a pre- •ser^dng-pan, and simmer them very gently until they are clear. They must remain in the syrup for two days. It must then be drained from them, boiled, and poured over them, and they must remain in it two days more. It must ! then be drained off, and used for flavonring or | other purposes, and the apricots dusted with i sugar and placed a little apart from each other I in a cool oven to dry. They keep best in a tin box with writing-paper between the layers. The apricot syrup mixed with an equal quantity of brandy also makes an agreeable liquor. Time to make, six days. Apricots, To Dry (another way).— Wipe gently, stone, and halve some fine apricots, which must be sound and not very ripe. Weigh them, place them in a single layer in a large dish, strew their- weight in sifted white sugar thickly over them, and leave them untU the following day. Then put them carefully into a preserving-pan over a moderate fire ; let them heat very gradually until tender. Take them out gently, so' as not to break them, and let them stand in the syrup for two days, after which, take them out of it singly, place them on dishes to dry. They must be kept in a dry place.