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ORANGE MARMALADE (old-fashioned method)
Take the weight of the oranges in loaf sugar. Divide the rinds into quarters, put them into a preserving-pan with plenty of cold water, and let them boil until they can be easily pierced with the head of a pin. Whilst they are boiling, divide the fruit into sections, scrape out carefully all the pulp, and throw the skins and pips into a little cold water--a pint is sufficient for a dozen oranges. When the rinds are tender, drain them well, and preserve the water in which they were boiled. If it is wished to have the marmalade very clear, thin, and highly colored, the pith or inside of the rinds should be scraped out. The marmalade will then be more like preserve. It will be thicker and more economical if the pith be left in, but this is a matter of taste. Lay the rinds in folds, and cut them into thin shreds about an inch long. Allow a pint of water for every dozen oranges, using the strained liquid from the pips and skins and that in which the oranges were boiled, instead of fresh water. Put the pulp and the shreds into this, let them infuse for six hours, then boil them gently until the shreds are quite tender; add the proper proportion of pounded sugar, and boil again until the marmalade jellies. Put it into jars, and when cold cover in the usual way. Time, two hours to boil the rinds; six hours to infuse the pulp, etc., in the liquid. Probable cost of marmalade, 8d. per pound.
A long, unhurried method that gets its set from the fruit itself: the pips and skins soaked separately are there purely for pectin. The hinge is the sugar, which goes in only after the shreds are fully tender.
- Which orangesAn "old-fashioned" English marmalade of this date assumes bitter Seville oranges, in season roughly January and February. Sweet eating oranges will make something closer to a sweet preserve and will set less firmly, since they carry less pectin and less acid.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a cone and broken or pounded down, which is why the recipe later says "pounded sugar." Ordinary granulated sugar, weight for weight with the fruit, is the direct substitute.
- Preserving-panUse the widest heavy pan you have, filled no more than a third. Wide means fast evaporation and a shorter boil, which protects the colour; a tall narrow pan boils over and dulls the flavour.
- The pips and skinsThat pint of cold water holding the membranes and pips is the pectin extract, and the reason no commercial pectin is needed. Strain it into the fruit and shreds as directed, and squeeze the pulp rather than discarding it dry.
- Two hours on the rindsThe pin-head test matters more than the clock. Quarters of thick Seville peel may take 90 minutes to two hours, thinner fruit rather less; if the peel is not soft before the sugar goes in it will never soften afterwards.
- Boiling to set"Until the marmalade jellies" means about 220F / 104C on a sugar thermometer, or a wrinkle test on a chilled saucer. After the sugar is added this often takes 15 to 30 minutes at a brisk boil; much longer and the colour darkens.
- Pith or no pithScraping out the white pith gives the clear, jewel-like cut marmalade; leaving it in gives a cloudier, thicker, fuller-yielding jar. Both are correct, exactly as the book says.
- "Cover in the usual way"In this period that meant a waxed disc and a paper cover tied down, sometimes over a film of brandy. Modern practice is hot sterilised jars filled to within a quarter-inch of the rim and sealed at once with two-piece lids, or a 10-minute water bath for long storage.
- YieldA dozen Sevilles run about 3 lb of fruit, so with equal sugar expect roughly 5 lb of finished marmalade, about six one-pound jars.
Marmalade began as a quince paste -- the word comes through French from Portuguese marmelada, from marmelo, quince -- and only became an orange preserve in Britain, where the bitter Seville was the winter fruit of choice. By the time Cassell's dictionary was compiled, the shredded-peel breakfast marmalade was thoroughly domestic work: Dundee firms had been selling it commercially for decades, but the household copy still assumed a cook with a preserving-pan, a two-hour boil and a free morning in January. The label "old-fashioned method" may be a clue that quicker versions were already circulating, chopping raw peel or mincing the whole fruit; this one keeps the older sequence of boiling the rind whole first, then infusing for the six hours the recipe specifies to draw out pectin. The costing of 8d. a pound is a reminder that the arithmetic of homemade against bought was a normal part of a recipe.