THE CONFECTIONER.

A Confectioner is one who makes sweet-neats, preserves of various kinds, jellies, jams, gingerbread, &c. and is generally combined with the Pastry-cook, who makes tarts, cheese-cakes, pies, &c.

Confects, or confits, is a denomination given to fruits, flowers, herbs, roots, and juices, when boiled and prepared with sugar or honey to keep them, or to render them more agreeable to the taste.

The ancients only confected with honey; at present sugar is more frequently used. Confits, half sugared, are those only covered with a little sugar, to leave more of the natural taste of the fruit.

The making of gingerbread, we are told, is an art of the highest antiquity, and that its use has come to us from Asia. We read, in fact, that a bread, sweetened with honey, was made at Rhodes, of such an agreeable taste, that it could be eaten with pleasure after the most sumptuous feasts. The Greeks called this bread melilates : thence it came into Europe, and descending to our own times, has obtained the name of gingerbread.

Confects are reduced to eight kinds, viz. liquid confects, marmalades, jellies, pastes, dry confects, conserves, candies, and sugar-
plums ; sometimes called comfits.

Liquid confects are those whose fruits, either whole, in pieces, in seeds, or in clusters, are confected in a fluid, transparent syrup, which takes its colour and name from that of the fruit boiled in it. A good deal of art is necessary in preparing these well ; if they be
too little sugared, they will ferment and spoil, and if too much, they will candy. The most esteemed of the liquid confects, are plums
especially those called mirabels, barberries, quinces, apricots, cherries, orange-flowers, little green citrons from Madeira, green cassia from the Levant, myrobalans, ginger, cloves, &c.

Marmalades are a kind of pastes almost liquid, made of the pulp of fruits or flowers that have some consistence ; such as apricots,
apples, pears, plums, quinces, oranges, and ginger. Marmalade of ginger is brought from the Indies by way of Holland. It is esteemed good to revive the natural heat in aged persons.

Jellies are juices of several fruits, wherein sugar has been dissolved, and the whole, by boiling, reduced into a pretty thick consistence, so as, upon cooling, to resemble a thin transparent glue or size. Jellies are made of various kinds of fruits, especially gooseberries, currants, apples, and quinces: there are other jellies, made of flesh, fish, hartshorn, &c. but they are not kept long, being very subject to corrupt.

Pastes are a kind of marmalades, thickened to that degree, by a proper boiling, as to assume any form when put into little moulds, and dried in an oven. The most in use are gooseberries, quinces, apples, plums, pears and orange-flowers ; those of pistachoes are
the most esteemed ; those of ginger are brought from the Indies.

Dry confects are those whose fruits, after having been boiled in the syrup, are taken out again, drained, and put to dry in an oven.
These are made of so many kinds of fruit, that it would be troublesome to mention them all : the most considerable are citron, lemon, and orange-peel ; plums, pears, cherries, and apricots.

Conserves are a kind of dry confects, made with sugar-pastes, of flowers or fruits, &c. The most usual amongst them, are those of
roses, mallows, rosemary, of hips, of orange-peel, orange-flowers, violets, jessamine, pistachoes, citrons, and sloes.

Candies are, ordinarily, entire fruits, candied over with sugar having been boiled in the syrup, which renders them like little rocks
crystallized, of various figures and colours, according to the fruits enclosed in them. The best candies are brought from Italy.

Sugar-pluns, or comfits, are a kind of little dry confects, made of small fruits or seeds, lrttle pieces of bark, as cinnamon or cassia, or odoriferous and aromatic roots, &c incrusted, and covered over with a verv hard sugar ordinarily white ; but sometimes of other
colours. Of these there are various kinds, distinguished by various names ;.some are made of raspberries, others of barberries,
melon seeds, pistachoes, filberts, almond, cinnamon, cassia, orange-peel, coriander, aniseed, carraways, &c.

Ice-cream is, also, an article to be found in the Confectioner's shop; who generally lays in, during the winter, a competent supply of
ice, preserved in a proper receptacle, to furnish his customers with this agreeable treat in the summer months.

The Confectioners of London are famous for the elegance and size of their Twelfth-Day cakes ; for some days previously to this
period, their shops are decorated with a great variety of them, made of different shapes, and with various devices upon them : some weigh many hundred pounds.

There are various forms and preparations of gingerbread : we shall content ourselves with giving the following recipe, which is well recommended.

Into a pound of almonds, blanched and pounded, grate a penny white loaf, sift and beat them together ; to the mixture add an ounce of ginger scraped fine, and of liquorice and aniseed, in powder, of each a quarter of an ounce ; pour in two or three spoonfuls of rose water, and make the whole into a paste with half a pound of sugar : mould and roll it; print it, and dry it in a stove. Some make gingerbread of treacle, citron, lemon, and orange-peel, with candied ginger, coriander, and carraway seeds, mixed up with as much flour as will make it into a paste.