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Orange and Lemon Candied Rings for Garnishing
When orange jelly or punch is being made, and the orange rinds are not used, it is good economy (if trouble is not a consideration) to candy the latter in rings, and store them in a tin box until wanted for garnishing sweet dishes. Cut the oranges into rounds a quarter of an inch thick, remove the pulp without breaking the ring, and leave a narrow rim of white on the yellow part. Throw these rings into salt and water, leave them until the following day, and then boil them in fresh water until they are tender. Lift them carefully out, drain on an inverted sieve, and when cool dip them into brandy. Make a syrup, allowing half a pound of loaf sugar and half a pint of the water in which the rings were boiled to each half a dozen oranges. Boil it until clear; dip the rings into it three times, and again drain them. Heat the syrup twice a day, and dip the rings into it whilst it is hot, but not boiling, and continue this until they are candied. Store in tin boxes, arranging the rings in single layers between sheets of writing-paper. They will keep any length of time in a cool dry place. The sugar which remains is excellent for flavouring. Time, half an hour to boil them in fresh water; to be dipped in hot syrup twice a day until they are candied.
A slow candying method spread over several days, worth doing when you have already stripped oranges for juice or jelly. Nothing here is difficult, but the schedule is the whole recipe.
- The hinge: never boil the syrup with the rings in itOnce the initial boil in plain water has softened the peel, every subsequent dip is in syrup that is hot but not boiling. Boiling at that stage toughens the peel and makes it leathery instead of translucent.
- Cutting the ringsSlice the whole fruit crosswise a quarter inch thick, then cut out the pulp from inside each ring so you are left with an intact hoop of zest plus a thin band of white pith. A grapefruit spoon or a small paring knife works; leaving too much pith gives a bitter, spongy result.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a cone, prized because it was clean and free of molasses. Ordinary granulated white sugar is its direct equivalent, weight for weight: 8 oz (about 1 generous cup) per six oranges.
- Half a pintThis is an Imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz or about 1 1/4 US cups, of the water the peel was boiled in. Using that water rather than fresh keeps the citrus flavour in the syrup.
- The salt soakThe recipe says only 'salt and water' overnight, with no proportion given; a modern brine of roughly 1 tablespoon salt per quart works. Brining peel is generally held to draw out bitterness from the pith and to firm the rings so they hold their shape through boiling. Rinsing well before the fresh-water boil is not in the text, but without it the finished peel may taste faintly saline.
- How long the whole process takesThe recipe sets no number of days, only twice-daily dipping 'until they are candied' -- in practice several days. The rings are done when they look glassy rather than opaque, feel firm but not hard, and the syrup has thickened noticeably as the peel takes up sugar.
- Writing-paper and tin boxesSubstitute parchment or waxed paper between the layers, and any airtight tin or rigid container. Avoid plastic bags, which trap moisture and make the rings sticky.
- The brandy dipThe recipe calls for it after the rings are drained and cooled; it can be left out without wrecking the result. Why it is there is not stated -- flavour is the obvious reading, and spirit on the surface before the sugar takes over would do no harm.
- YieldSix oranges give roughly 30 to 40 rings, depending on fruit size, and about a cup of heavily citrus-scented leftover syrup, which is good over cake or in punch.
Candied citrus peel belongs to the older tradition of the confectioner rather than the cook: preserving fruit in sugar was for centuries the main way to keep it, and dry "succades" of orange and lemon rind appear in English recipe collections well before Cassell's. What dates this particular entry is its framing as economy. In a late Victorian kitchen an orange was bought whole, juiced for jelly or punch, and the rind was a byproduct too good to throw away, so it could be turned into garnish for months of sweet dishes. The parenthetical "if trouble is not a consideration" is the compiler being honest that this is days of attention for a decorative result, at a moment when commercially candied peel was already on sale and the case for making your own was weakening.