The currants should be quite ripe, and gathered on a dry day.
Having stripped them from the stalks, put them into a close stone
jar, and set it in a kettle of boiling water. As soon as the
currants begin to break, take them out and strain them through a
linen cloth. To each pint of juice allow a pound and a quarter of
the best double refined loaf-sugar; break it small, and put it
into a porcelain preserving pan with barely sufficient water to
melt it; not quite half a pint to a pound and a quarter of sugar;
it must be either clear spring water or river water filtered. Stir
up the sugar while it is dissolving, and when all is melted, put
it over a brisk fire, and boil and skim it till clear and thick.
When the scum ceases to rise, put in the white currant juice and
boil it fast for ten minutes. Then put it warm into tumblers, and
when it is cold, cover it with double white tissue paper.
In making this jelly, use only a silver spoon, and carefully
observe all the above precautions, that it may be transparent and
delicate. If it is not quite clear and bright when done boiling,
you may run it again through a jelly-bag.
White raspberry jelly may be prepared in the same manner. A very
nice sweetmeat is made of white raspberries preserved whole, by
putting them in white currant jelly during the ten minutes that
you are boiling the juice with the syrup. You may also preserve
red raspberries whole, by boiling them in red currant jelly.