Home › Fruits › Oranges in Jelly
Oranges in Jelly
Boil the smallest-sized oranges in water until a straw will easily penetrate them, clarify half a pound of sugar for each pound of fruit, cut in halves or quarters, and put them to the syrup, set over a slow fire until the fruit is clear; then stir into it an ounce or more of dissolved isinglass, and let it boil for a short time longer. Before taking it up try the jelly, and if it is not thick enough add more isinglass, first taking out the oranges into a deep glass dish, and then straining the jelly over them. Lemons may be prepared in the same manner.
A Victorian dessert of whole candied oranges suspended in their own bright jelly. Everything hinges on how you treat the setting agent.
- Do not boil the jelly hard once the isinglass is inProlonged or vigorous boiling weakens the set. "Let it boil for a short time longer" is best read as just enough to dissolve and combine — a minute or two at a bare simmer.
- IsinglassDried sturgeon swim bladder, sold in sheets and once the standard clear setting agent. Powdered or leaf gelatin is the usual modern replacement, though the two do not substitute weight-for-weight; work up from the packet directions and test. Setting strength varied between batches, which may be why the recipe tells you to test.
- Testing the jellyChill a spoonful on a cold saucer for a few minutes. If it wrinkles and holds a soft shape, it is ready; if it stays syrupy, lift out the fruit and whisk in more gelatin off the heat rather than boiling it down.
- Clarifying sugarIn period usage this means dissolving the sugar in water, bringing it to a boil, and skimming the scum — traditionally with beaten egg white to carry off impurities. Modern refined sugar needs none of this: simply dissolve half a pound of sugar in about a cup of water per pound of fruit and bring to a boil.
- Boiling the oranges whole firstThis is not just softening. Long simmering in plain water draws out much of the bitterness from pith and peel, which is why the whole fruit can then be eaten. Expect 45 minutes to over an hour for small thin-skinned oranges; change the water once or twice if the fruit is very bitter.
- "A slow fire"The lowest simmer you can hold. The syrup should barely move. Rushing this stage candies the outside and leaves the peel tough rather than translucent.
- Choosing fruitThe recipe calls for the smallest oranges; small thin-skinned fruit such as clementines is easiest to work with, and large thick-skinned navels are less suitable. The recipe does not say whether the pound of fruit is weighed before or after boiling.
- Yield and servingThe recipe's ratio is half a pound of sugar to each pound of fruit, so two pounds of oranges takes a pound of sugar. Turn the fruit into a deep glass dish, strain the jelly over, and chill until set before serving.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (1877), compiled from the contributions of Ohio housewives, sits at the tail end of a long English tradition of "preserved" whole citrus — oranges boiled tender, candied slowly in syrup, and then either potted or, as here, set in a clear jelly for the table. Whole boiled oranges in syrup appear in English receipt books from the seventeenth century onward, when bitter Seville fruit arrived by ship in winter and had to be used up quickly; the long preliminary boil in plain water was the standard way of taming their bitterness. Isinglass, the fish-derived gelatin called for here, was the fine clear setting agent of the period, prized over calf's-foot jelly for dishes meant to be seen through, and it was still being sold in sheets in American groceries when this book was printed. Packaged granulated gelatin was just beginning to displace it, and within a generation recipes like this one would be written for the box instead.</invoke>3