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CRAB APPLES, SIBERIAN (to preserve whole)
Rub the crabs with a piece of flannel till they are quite clean, but do not break the skin. Prick each one with a needle to prevent its bursting with the heat of the syrup. Simmer half a dozen cloves and some whole ginger in a breakfast-cupful of water till the flavour is extracted. Strain the liquid, and boil it for ten minutes, with one pound of loaf sugar. Skim it carefully, then put with it a pint of crabs. Let them just boil up, then take off till cold, and repeat this three times. If then they look quite clear they are done enough, if not, boil them once more. Lift the crabs into a jar. Pour the syrup when cold over the fruit, and tie the jar down closely. Time, two or three hours. They are seldom offered for sale. Sufficient, one pound of fresh fruit for one pint of preserved fruit.
A Victorian syrup preserve that depends entirely on patience rather than heat. The method is sound; only the units, the sugar name and the sealing need translating.
- The hinge: boil up, then leave aloneThe fruit is brought just to the boil and then left to cool completely in the syrup, three or four times over. Each cycle draws sugar in slowly so the apples plump and clarify instead of bursting and collapsing. Continuous boiling will give you shrivelled fruit in cloudy syrup, and there is no way back from it.
- Siberian crabsThese are the small cherry-sized fruits of Malus baccata and its relatives, usually red or orange and no more than an inch across, sold as ornamental crabs if sold at all. Larger culinary crabs such as John Downie will work but need pricking more than once and will take longer to clear.
- A breakfast-cupfulAbout 10 fl oz, so roughly 1¼ US cups. It is a flavouring infusion rather than a fixed ratio, and a little more or less will not spoil the syrup.
- A pint of crabsFruit measured by volume, not weight. The recipe's own note gives the yield rather than the raw measure: one pound of fresh fruit makes one pint of preserved fruit. What a pint of raw crabs weighs is not stated.
- Loaf sugarRefined white sugar, sold in the period as a solid cone to be broken up. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing; preserving sugar dissolves faster if you have it.
- Cloves and whole gingerHalf a dozen cloves is a light hand and worth keeping so. Use a thumb of dried root ginger, bruised, or a similar piece of fresh; ground ginger will cloud the syrup and cannot be strained out.
- "Time, two or three hours"This is total elapsed time only if you cool the pan quickly. In practice the cycles are best spread over a day, with the pan left to come down to room temperature naturally between each boil.
- Judging when doneThe fruit should look translucent right through, with no opaque core. Lift one out and hold it to the light; if the centre is still chalky, give it another boil-and-cool.
- Sealing and storageA jar tied down with paper or cloth was the standard Victorian closure and is not a seal. Pot into a sterilised jar with a proper lid, and either process it in a boiling water bath as a current preserving guide directs or keep it in the refrigerator and use it within a few weeks.
Siberian crab apples are generally said to have reached British gardens from north-east Asia around the 1780s, and were planted mainly for blossom and for the ornamental fruit, which is far too sour and astringent to eat raw. The aside — "they are seldom offered for sale" — is the telling line: this was a recipe for people with a tree in the garden or an obliging neighbour, not for shoppers, and Victorian household books are full of such preserves aimed at using up fruit that no greengrocer would stock. Crab apples are exceptionally high in pectin and acid, which is why they turn up so often in period jellies and cheeses; here, unusually, the fruit is kept whole and candied in spiced syrup instead, in the older tradition of preserved and "clear" fruits served at the end of a meal or set out on the dessert table.