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Fruit Candies
SOME of the most delicious home-made candies are made with the addition of fruits to the other ingredients. All kinds of candied fruits, also many kinds of dried fruits, such as dates, figs, raisins and prunes may be used in candy-making. Many may not know that just as delicious candies can be made with our home-preserved fruits.
Candied fruits are in most cases expensive, but they can be made at home, and therefore the expense cut down. Cherries can be candied in the following manner: Select nice, large, and not over-ripe cherries for this purpose. Stone them carefully. Weigh the cherries, and to each pound of the fruit add two pounds of sugar, using only the best granulated for this purpose. Put the sugar in a kettle with one-half cupful of water, and boil to a thick syrup, removing all scum as it arises. Place a few of the cherries in at a time, and let simmer slowly until the fruit is transparent. Remove the fruit with a strainer, and add more of them until all have been cooked in this manner. Then place them back in syrup and let them stand over night in it. In the morning remove and place them out in the sun. It is a good idea to place them in a sieve, spreading them over it, and then cover the sieve with netting. They can be dried in the oven if desired, but one must be careful that they do not burn. When dried place in boxes between layers of paraffine paper, sprinkling each layer with powdered sugar. Place in a dry place until ready to use them in making candies. Pears, quinces, pineapples, peaches and plums may all be candied. Select firm-textured fruit and boil until tender in water before placing in the syrup; then proceed as in candying the cherries. Orange and lemon rind may also be candied. Remove the skin from the oranges or lemons in quarters and simmer in water until soft; then drain and remove all the white portion by scraping with a silver knife or spoon. Cut the oranges or lemons into small strips with the scissors, cook in the thick syrup, and roll in granulated sugar.
A working method for home-candied fruit, written before thermometers were standard kitchen equipment. The whole thing hinges on getting sugar into the fruit slowly enough that it does not shrivel.
- The hinge: slow simmer, few at a timeCherries dropped into hot syrup in a crowd will drop the temperature, then toughen and collapse as it climbs back. Work in small batches so the syrup barely trembles, and stop when the fruit turns translucent rather than when it looks done shrinking.
- "Boil to a thick syrup"Two pounds of sugar with half a cup of water needs only enough heat to dissolve fully and thicken; the book gives no temperature, but this is roughly what is usually called the thread stage, around 230F. Taken much higher, the syrup begins to set around the fruit rather than soaking in.
- ProportionsTwo pounds of sugar to one pound of stoned cherries is roughly 4 1/2 cups sugar per pound of fruit. The sugar is doing the preserving here, so cutting it back is likely to shorten how long the fruit keeps.
- Oven dryingUse the lowest setting the oven allows, 150-170F, with the door propped slightly ajar so moisture escapes. Several hours, turning once or twice. Higher heat and the fruit browns and sticks, which is what the book means by warning against burning.
- Sun dryingThe netting is there to keep insects off, and it is still needed. This works only in genuinely hot, dry, low-humidity weather; bring the sieve in overnight so dew does not undo the day's work.
- Paraffine paperWax paper or parchment. Store the finished fruit in an airtight tin somewhere cool and dry, and check for weeping or mould over the first week -- underdried candied fruit will not keep, whatever the sugar content.
- Silver knifeA concern about metal reacting with fruit acid. Any stainless steel or plastic tool now does the job without discolouring the peel.
- Citrus peelThe bitterness lives in the white pith, so scrape it thoroughly. Two or three changes of simmering water before scraping makes the peel softer and milder than a single boil.
- Yield and timingTiming -- Budget three days: syrup and simmer on day one, overnight soak, drying on day two and possibly into day three.
Candying is one of the oldest forms of fruit preservation in European cookery, predating canning by centuries: sugar draws water out of the fruit and replaces it, leaving nothing for spoilage organisms to live on. This passage is doing something specific to its moment, though. Commercially candied cherries, citron and angelica were imported luxury goods, priced accordingly, and a candy-making manual aimed at the home cook needed them for fillings, fondant centres and decorated boxes. The author's argument is economic rather than culinary -- make them yourself and cut the expense -- the reasoning of a time when store-bought candy was still a purchase rather than a habit. The instruction to dry the fruit in the sun under netting is a reminder that these books assumed a household with a yard, settled weather, and someone at home to bring the sieve in.