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ORANGE MARMALADE (an easy method)
Take equal weights of oranges and loaf sugar. Put the oranges whole into a preserving-pan, cover them with cold water, and bring them to the point of boiling. Pour off the liquid, put fresh water with the fruit, and boil gently until the rinds of the oranges can be easily pierced with the head of a pin. Take out and drain the oranges, and cut them--skin, pulp, and everything--into very thin slices; remove the pips, and throw the fruit into a preserving-pan with half a pint of the water in which the oranges were last boiled to every pound of fruit, and half the sugar, which is to be used. Simmer gently for thirty minutes, then add the remainder of the sugar, and boil twenty minutes longer, or until the marmalade jellies. Pour it into jars, and when cold cover and store for use. Probable cost of Seville oranges, 5s. or 6s. per hundred.
A whole-fruit marmalade that skips the overnight soak and the shredding of raw peel: the oranges are boiled soft first, then sliced. It works, but the setting depends entirely on judging the boil, since the pectin-rich pips are thrown away.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a cone and broken or nipped into lumps. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent by weight; preserving sugar dissolves faster but is not necessary here.
- Equal weightsWeigh the whole raw oranges and match that weight in sugar. For a manageable batch, 2 lb (900 g) of Seville oranges to 2 lb of sugar, which needs a pan of at least 8 pints capacity to allow for the boil-up.
- Seville orangesThe price note makes clear these are bitter Sevilles, in season in Britain roughly January and February. Sweet oranges will make a cloying, flabby preserve; if Sevilles are unavailable, add the juice of two lemons per 2 lb of fruit for acidity.
- The first boilBringing the fruit to the boil and discarding that water draws off some of the harshest bitterness from the peel. Do not skip it, and do not save the first water — only the second boiling water is used in the marmalade.
- Pin testThe rinds should take a pin with no resistance, which usually means 1½ to 2 hours of gentle simmering for whole Sevilles. Underboiled peel will never soften again once sugar is added.
- The pipsThe pips hold a good deal of the pectin, and this recipe throws them away (the pith is kept, since the fruit is sliced skin, pulp and all). Tie the pips in a scrap of muslin, simmer them with the fruit and sugar, then lift out and squeeze the bag against the side of the pan before potting; otherwise a poor set is likely.
- Judging the set\"Until the marmalade jellies\" means 220F/105C on a sugar thermometer, or a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer that wrinkles when pushed. The stated twenty minutes is a guide only — start testing at fifteen.
- Jars and coveringPot into hot, oven-sterilised jars and seal at once with lids rather than waiting for the marmalade to go cold as directed; a hot seal keeps mould out. Let it stand ten minutes off the heat before potting so the shreds distribute instead of floating to the top.
- Yield2 lb of fruit with 2 lb of sugar gives roughly 3 to 3 1/2 lb of marmalade, or three to four standard 1 lb jars.
Marmalade began as a solid quince paste — the word comes from the Portuguese marmelo, quince — and only shifted to citrus, and to a spreadable set, in Britain over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By the time Cassell's dictionary appeared in the late Victorian period, bitter Seville oranges arriving in midwinter had made marmalade a familiar annual event in British kitchens. The "easy method" here saves real labour: many contemporary recipes call for slicing raw peel paper-thin by hand and soaking it overnight, whereas boiling the fruit whole first lets a knife go through softened skin and pulp together. The costing at the end — five or six shillings the hundred — is in keeping with the book, which gives a probable cost for its ingredients throughout.