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Lemon Marmalade
Take some fresh clear lemons. Boil them for two hours in as much water as will cover them. Pour off the water once or twice during that time, and replace it with fresh boiling water. Drain the lemons, and cut them into thin slices. Leave out all the pips and weigh the fruit, and allow two pounds of loaf sugar and a pint of the water the lemons were last boiled in for every pound of fruit. Boil the sugar and water for ten minutes. Put in the pulp, etc., and boil together for half an hour. Pour the marmalade into jars; when cool, cover it with brandied paper, and afterwards with bladder or tissue-paper brushed over either with white of egg or dissolved gum. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A Victorian whole-fruit marmalade in which the lemons are boiled soft before slicing rather than after. The measurements are imperial and the covering method is obsolete, but the method itself works well.
- The hinge: the pre-boilBoiling the whole lemons for two hours, with one or two changes of water, both softens the peel and draws out bitterness. Do not skip the water changes and do not shorten the boil, or the finished marmalade will be tough and harsh.
- Keep the last waterOnly the final boiling water is used in the syrup, at a pint per pound of prepared fruit. That is an imperial pint, 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined white sugar sold in cones and broken up for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct substitute; there is no need for jam sugar since citrus peel carries plenty of pectin.
- The pipsThe recipe discards them, but lemon pips are rich in pectin. Tying them in muslin and boiling them with the syrup gives a firmer set.
- Judging the setHalf an hour of hard boiling is usually about right, but test rather than trust the clock: setting point is 220F on a sugar thermometer, or a spoonful that wrinkles on a chilled saucer.
- Sugar ratioTwo pounds of sugar to one of prepared fruit is a high sugar ratio, and one long standard in marmalade making. The result is sweet and keeps very well; reduce the sugar only if you intend to refrigerate the jars and eat them within a few weeks.
- Brandied paper, bladder, gumA disc of paper dipped in brandy laid on the cooled surface discouraged mould; bladder or gummed tissue sealed the top. Use sterilised jars filled hot and closed with two-piece lids or lacquered screw caps instead.
- YieldSix medium lemons give roughly 1 lb of prepared sliced fruit, which with the sugar and water makes about three 1 lb jars.
Marmalade in the English sense began as a quince paste — the name comes through Portuguese marmelada, from marmelo, quince — and shifted towards citrus across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Seville oranges became cheap enough for household preserving. By the time Cassell's was compiled, the shred marmalade of breakfast tables was firmly established, and a book of this kind offered variations on it, lemon among them. The inclusion of a probable cost per pound is characteristic of Cassell's, which was written for households keeping accounts.