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Crystallized Fruits: Candied
Candied Cranberries 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup cranberries Select firm, red cranberries, wash, dry and prick two or three times with needle. Boil sugar and water until it spins a thread, put in cranberries, and cook gently until syrup will jelly when tested from tip of spoon. Remove berries, one at a time, to wax paper, and let stand in the air until well dried. Roll in granulated sugar, and use like candied cherries. Candied Grapefruit Peel Wash and wipe three thick skinned grapefruit, and remove the peel in six sections lengthwise of fruit. Soak overnight in one quart of cold water to which is added one tablespoon salt. Drain, put in saucepan, cover with cold water, and bring to boiling point; repeat this process three times, cooking in the last water until peel is soft and tender. Drain, and cut with scissors into thin narrow strips. Weigh the peel. Put an equal weight of sugar into a saucepan, add half a cup of water, bring syrup to boiling point, add the peel, and cook until it is clear. Remove each piece separately, drain, and place on a plate to cool, then roll each piece in powdered sugar, and spread out to dry. When well dried, store in glass jars.
Two confections from the same syrup principle: fruit simmered in a heavy sugar solution until saturated, then dried and rolled. The hinge in both is syrup concentration, and a thermometer removes all the guesswork the original leaves in.
- "Spins a thread"Thread stage, about 230-234F on a candy thermometer. With only half a cup each of sugar and water you will have a shallow pool; use the smallest pan you own so the bulb of the thermometer is actually submerged.
- The jelly testA drop from the spoon tip that holds its shape rather than running is the sign the syrup has thickened enough. Don't try to pin a number to it: the berries release water into the pan, so go by the spoon test rather than the thermometer here. Cranberries are relatively high in pectin, which helps the syrup set.
- Pricking the cranberriesThis is not optional. Unpricked berries build steam under the skin and burst, dumping pulp into the syrup. Two or three needle holes let syrup in and steam out; keep the heat low and do not stir hard.
- The salt soakOvernight in a quart of water with a tablespoon of salt draws bitterness from the white pith. It is a period technique and it works, but the three changes of boiling water do most of the job on their own.
- Three changes of waterBring to a boil and drain three times, then simmer in the fourth water until the peel yields easily to a fingernail, usually 30-45 minutes. Skipping blanchings leaves grapefruit peel harshly bitter, more so than orange or lemon.
- Weighing the peelEqual weight of sugar to drained peel is the correct instruction and worth following with a scale rather than a cup. Blanch and drain first, then weigh, and match the sugar to whatever you have.
- "Cook until it is clear"The strips turn translucent as syrup replaces water, typically 40 minutes to an hour of gentle simmering. Rushing it on high heat candies the outside and leaves the centre tough.
- DryingBoth need air, not an oven. Allow several hours to overnight on wax paper or a rack; in humid weather it can take a full day. Sugaring before the surface is dry gives a wet, syrupy coat that will not keep.
- Yield and storageThe cranberries make only a small garnish quantity, on the order of the half cup you started with, and are best used soon. The grapefruit peel keeps for weeks in a tightly closed jar at room temperature; damp is the enemy, so a dry cupboard suits it better than a refrigerator.
Candied peel is one of the oldest surviving uses of sugar in European cooking, predating sugar as a everyday sweetener: when it was costly, preserving citrus rind in syrup turned an inedible byproduct into a luxury that kept for months. Grapefruit is the newcomer in that tradition. It only became a common American breakfast fruit in the early twentieth century, as Florida groves expanded and refrigerated rail shipping reached northern cities. The candied cranberries answer a different need: the book directs the cook to "use like candied cherries," meaning as decoration for cakes and confections, and one might guess that a home cook working through a New England winter had cranberries to hand where glacé cherries had to be bought.