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Nectarines, Candied
Gather the nectarines when perfectly sound and not over-ripe. Weigh them carefully, rub them with a soft cloth, split them in halves, and take out the stones; boil half their weight in sugar with a quarter of a pint of water to each pound, and when quite clear put in the nectarines, and let them boil gently until they are clear, but unbroken; then lift them out carefully, and put them on an inverted sieve to drain. Next day boil the syrup until it is quite thick, put in the fruit, and boil it gently for five minutes, and on taking out the nectarines again drain them; repeat this process twice. After the nectarines are taken out the last time spread them on dishes, place them in a moderate oven, sprinkle sifted sugar over them, and turn them about until they are dry.
A four-day candying schedule of the kind Victorian households ran through the late-summer fruit glut. The method is sound, but two instructions need translating before you start.
- The syrup ratioHalf the fruit's weight in sugar, plus a quarter-pint of water "to each pound"; the original does not make clear whether that pound is of fruit or of sugar. In imperial measure a quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, near enough two-thirds of a US cup. Read as per pound of fruit, two pounds of nectarines take 1 lb sugar and about 1¼ cups water.
- The hinge: gentle heat, never a rolling boilThe whole point of repeated short boils over several days is to raise the sugar concentration in the fruit slowly, so the flesh stays whole. A hard boil collapses the halves and there is no recovering them. Keep the syrup at a bare tremble whenever fruit is in it.
- "A moderate oven" is misleading hereTaken at modern face value it would caramelise the sugar and stew the fruit; for drying candied fruit the intent is a cooling oven. Modern equivalent is 120-150F with the door propped, or a dehydrator, over several hours.
- Choosing the fruitFirm-ripe and unblemished, as stated. Freestone nectarines halve cleanly; clingstones will tear and are not worth the trouble. The recipe asks only that the fruit be sound and not over-ripe.
- The inverted sieveA sieve turned upside down so the fruit sits on the domed outside and syrup runs off all sides. A wire cooling rack over a tray does the same job and catches the drips for reuse.
- Timing the syrup between days"Boil the syrup until it is quite thick" means reducing it a stage further each day — by the last round you are near 225-230F on a sugar thermometer. Judge by thread rather than by clock.
- Finishing and storageThe sifted sugar is a coating, not a seasoning; superfine or caster clings best. Once fully dry to the touch, layer between waxed paper in an airtight tin. Properly dried they keep for months; any tackiness means they need more drying time.
- YieldThe fruit loses much of its water and gains sugar during the process. Reserve the leftover syrup for poaching or for the next batch.
Cassell's belongs to the era when sugar had become cheap enough for ordinary British households to preserve fruit on a large scale, and candying — drying fruit in successively stronger syrups — was one of several competing methods alongside jam, bottling and drying. The technique itself is far older, descended from the medieval succade and the confectioner's arts that reached England through Italy and the Levant, where candied citrus peel and whole fruits were luxury goods. Nectarines and peaches were wall fruit in Victorian kitchen gardens, ripening all at once and bruising easily, which is exactly the problem candying solves. The instruction to weigh the fruit before anything else is characteristic of the period's preserving literature: sugar was reckoned as a proportion of fruit, and getting that proportion right was the difference between a keeping preserve and a spoiled one.