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Candied Quarters of Oranges
Peel the oranges, divide them into quarters, remove the pips as carefully as possible, and boil the fruit gently in plenty of water. Drain them thoroughly on a sieve, then place in a stewpan with syrup at twenty-eight degrees, and let them boil slowly for ten minutes. Turn them into a basin with the syrup and leave till the following day; then drain the syrup from the oranges, boil it and pour over them again. Proceed in the same way the three following days, giving the syrup in all what is called four fashions. Remove the quarters of oranges carefully from the syrup, put them on wire sieves and set them in the screen. When they are dry, dip them in semi-grained sugar and dry again. When quite dry (they should not stick to the fingers when touched), take the sieve of oranges from the screen and leave them until cold, then pack away in boxes between layers of white paper.
A five-day candying schedule written in professional confectioner's shorthand. Almost every obscure term here is a density, a piece of equipment, or a sugar grade rather than an instruction.
- Syrup "at twenty-eight degrees"That is 28° Baumé on the confectioner's saccharometer, roughly 1.24 specific gravity or about 52 Brix — near enough to equal weights of sugar and water once dissolved. A hydrometer or refractometer is the surest way to hit it; guessing produces either weeping fruit or a candy that seizes.
- "Four fashions"The hinge of the whole method. Each day the syrup is drained off, boiled to concentrate it, and poured back, so the sugar in the fruit rises in four gentle stages. Rushing it with one heavy syrup draws water out too fast and the quarters shrivel and toughen.
- The first boilBoiling the peeled quarters in plenty of water softens the membrane and draws out bitterness before the sugar goes near them. Change the water once or twice if your oranges are thick-skinned.
- PipsSeeds. Remove them before the blanch; digging them out of softened segments tears the quarters apart.
- "The screen"A warm drying cupboard beside the range. A dehydrator at 120-135°F, or an oven set as low as it goes with the door propped, does the same work over several hours.
- "Semi-grained sugar"Most likely sugar cooked and worked until it partly crystallises, giving a coarse, slightly opaque grain, though it may simply describe a medium crystal size. Coarse sanding or decorating sugar is the closest thing on a shelf today; ordinary granulated will do but gives a thinner coat.
- Stewpan and basinA wide non-reactive saucepan and a deep ceramic or glass bowl. Avoid bare aluminium or unlined copper — five days of hot citrus syrup will pick up metal.
- Timing and yieldPlan on five days of syrup work plus drying time, most of it unattended. Six oranges give roughly 24 quarters; stored between sheets of paper in a tin they keep for months.
Candied citrus is one of the oldest sugar confections in Europe, arriving with sugar itself from the Arab Mediterranean and appearing in English and French banquet lists as "succade" by the sixteenth century. The degree scale relied on here comes from Antoine Baumé, the eighteenth-century French chemist whose hydrometer gave confectioners a repeatable way to talk about syrup strength long before thermometers were common in kitchens; a well-equipped pastry department of the 1890s would likely have kept a saccharometer by the sugar boiler. Candied fruit was house stock, made in slow batches by the confiseur and drawn on for petits fours, glacé garnishes and the dishes of sweets that closed a long hotel dinner.