CANADIAN "FRUIT BUTTER."
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It may help some of your readers who have fruit-trees, and are trying to do with little sugar for preserving, if they make what we call here "fruit butter." This means boiling the prepared fruit to a soft pulp, without water, or with very little. It must be well stirred, and sugar is added after the first boiling, using three-eighths of a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit, after which it must again be boiled for half-an-hour, with constant stirring, to avoid burning. It will require probably two hours for the first cooking, and the longer it is cooked the less sugar will be needed. If it is boiled four hours, and one hour after the sugar is added, one-fourth of a pound to a pound of fruit will do.
Apple butter, as made iq America, has usually spice to taste, and a little cider added; and in countries having vineyards a jam is made with no sugar by mixing several kinds of fruits with enough grape-juice to cover them, and adding the vegetables that have sugar—peas, carrots, beets, and sometimes turnips. This jam is boiled a very long time—twelve hours or more. The advantage of the fruit butter is that bruised or imperfect fruit may be used, after cutting out the bad parts, and any kinds mai be used together.
I think a reprinting in England of some of the excellent American cookery-books issued in the last two years should help English housekeepers. One point about the American books is that they give all measurements in spoonfuls and cupfuls, with a table showing the equivalent of these in pounds and ounces, Nearly all the manufacturers of baking-powders and butter sub- stitutes issue pamphlets of excellent recipes free of charge, or at a nominal price.—I am, Sir, &c., A .CastaasuirHousawirs.
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