To make fine white Gelly of Quinces.

Take Quinces newly from the tree, fair and sound, wipe them clean, and boil them whole in a large quantity of water, the more the▪ better, and with a quick-fire, till the Quinces crack and are soft, which will be in a good half hour, or Page  295 an hour. Then take out the Quinces, and press out their juyce, with your hands hard, or gently in a press through a strainer, that only the clear liquor or juyce run out, but none of the pap, or solid and fleshy substance of the Quince. (The water, they were boiled in, you may throw a∣way.) This liquor will be slimy and mucilagi∣nous, which proceedeth much from the seeds that remaining within the Quinces, do contri∣bute to making this Liquor. Take three pound of it, and one pound of fine Sugar, and boil them up to a gelly, with a moderate fire, so that they boil every where, but not violently. They may require near an hours boiling to come to a gelly. The tryal of that is, to take a tin of silver plate, and wet it with fair-water, and drop a little of the boiling juyce upon the wet plate; if it stick to the plate, it is not enough; but if it fall off (when you sl•pe the Plate) without sticking at all to it, then is it enough: and then you put it into flat shallow Tin forms, first wetted with cold water, and let it stand in them four or five hours in a cold place, till it be quite cold. Then reverse the plates, that it may shale and fall out, and so put the parcels up in boxes.

Note, you take fountain water, and put the Quinces into it, both of them being cold. Then set your kettle to boil with a very quick-fire, that giveth a clear smart flame to the bottom of the kettle, which must be uncovered all the Page  296 while, that the gelly may prove the whiter; And so likewise it must be whiles the juyce or expres∣sion is boiling with the Sugar, which must be the finest, that it may not need clarifying with an Egg; but that little scum that riseth at the sides at the beginning of moderate boiling must be scummed away. You let your juyce or expression settle a while, that if any of the thick substance be come out with it, it may settle to the bottom; for you are to use for this only the clear juyce: which to have it the clearer, you may let it run through a•large, thin, open, strainer, without pressing it. When you boil the whole Quinces, you take them out, to strain them as soon as their skins crack, and that they are quite soft; which will not happen to them all at the same time, but according to their bigness and ripeness. Therefore first take out and press those, that are ready first: and the rest still as they grow to a fit state to press. You shall have more juyce by pressing the Quinces in a torcular, but it will be clearer, doing it with your hands; both ways, you lap them in a strainer.