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Mock Orange Marmalade
Scrape raw carrots, then grate enough to weigh two pounds, and squeeze over the carrot the juice of three lemons; set to cook in a double boiler over boiling water; let cook an hour or until the carrot is tender, then add the grated rind and juice of two oranges and two pounds (four cups) of sugar and let cook to a marmalade.
This marmalade is particularly palatable, but does not have the jelly-like consistency of marmalade made of oranges and grapefruit.
This marmalade may be used in making steamed carrot pudding, which is like an English plum pudding, the grated carrot being used in place of bread crumbs. Use marmalade to equal the combined weight of the carrots and sugar specified in the recipe. Use no sugar.
A carrot marmalade that borrows its flavour from citrus. It behaves differently from a true orange marmalade, and the recipe says so plainly — plan for a soft, spoonable conserve rather than a set.
- The proportionsTwo pounds grated carrot to two pounds sugar (four cups) plus the juice of three lemons and the juice and rind of two oranges. Weigh the carrot after grating; two pounds grated is roughly eight cups loosely packed.
- Why the double boilerGrated carrot and sugar scorch readily over direct heat, and there is no free liquid at the start beyond the lemon juice. The hour over boiling water softens the carrot gently. Once the sugar goes in you can finish it over direct low heat in a wide heavy pan if you stir constantly — it will thicken considerably faster.
- It will not setCarrot is low in pectin, and the recipe is honest about this. "Cook to a marmalade" means reduced until a spoonful mounds on a cold plate rather than running. Expect something between a conserve and a thick jam.
- Grate fineFine shreds break down more readily than coarse ones; the fine holes of a box grater, or a food processor's fine shredding disc, suit this preserve.
- The orange rindGrate only the coloured zest, and add it with the sugar as the recipe directs rather than at the start, so its aroma is not lost to a long cook.
- Yield and keepingRoughly four to five half-pint jars, depending on how far you reduce it. Because the set is soft and the sugar-to-fruit ratio is only 1:1, treat it as a refrigerator preserve unless you process filled jars in a boiling-water bath according to current tested times for a high-acid jam.
- The pudding noteThe closing lines describe a second use: a steamed carrot pudding in the English plum-pudding manner, in which grated carrot stands in for the bread crumbs and this marmalade is used in a weight equal to the carrots and sugar the pudding recipe specifies, with no further sugar added.
Carrot has a long history as a sweetener in English cookery — carrot puddings and carrot "marmalades" appear in household books well before the twentieth century, and the vegetable's high natural sugar and orange colour made it an obvious stand-in for citrus. This recipe belongs to that tradition of thrift preserving: the carrot supplies bulk and colour, the lemons supply the acid and the oranges supply the flavour. The final paragraph sends the finished marmalade on to a steamed pudding, treating the storecupboard as a chain of uses rather than a set of separate jars.