1. The Confectioner makes liquid and dry confects, jellies, marmalades, pastes, conserves, sugar-plums, ice-creams, candies, and cakes of various kinds.
2. Many of the articles just enumerated, are prepared in families for domestic use; but, as their preparation requires skill and practice, and is likewise attended with some trouble, it is sometimes better to purchase them of the confectioner.
3. _Liquid_ and dry _confects_ are preserves made of various kinds of fruits and berries, the principal of which are,--peaches, apricots, pears, quinces, apples, plums, cherries, grapes, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, and raspberries. The fruit, of whatever kind it may be, is confected by boiling it in a thick clarified syrup of sugar, until it is about half cooked. Dry confects are made by boiling the fruit a little in syrup, and then drying it with a moderate heat in an oven. The ancients confected with honey; but, at present, sugar is deemed more suitable for this purpose, and is almost exclusively employed.
4. _Jellies_ resemble a thin transparent glue, or size. They are made by mixing the juice of the fruits mentioned in the preceding paragraph, with a due proportion of sugar, and then boiling the composition down to a proper consistence. Jellies are also made of the flesh of animals; but such preparations cannot be long kept, as they soon become corrupt.
5. _Marmalades_ are thin pastes, usually made of the pulp of fruits that have some consistence, and about an equal weight of sugar. _Pastes_ are similar to marmalades, in their materials, and mode of preparation. The difference consists only in their being reduced by evaporation to a consistence, which renders them capable of retaining a form, when put into moulds, and dried in an oven.
6. _Conserves_ are a species of dry confects, compounded of sugar and flowers. The flowers usually employed, are,--roses, mallows, rosemary, orange, violets, jessamine, pistachoes, citrons, and sloes. Orange-peel is also used for the same purpose.
7. _Candies_ are made of clarified sugar, reduced by evaporation to a suitable degree of consistence. They receive their name from the essence, or substance, employed in giving them the required flavour.