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Candied Oranges
Peel and skin thoroughly two sound, juicy oranges; divide the sections, lay them on a paper, thick side downward, and let stand for forty-five minutes. Place a half pound granulated sugar with a tablespoon water in a copper basin and boil for ten minutes, then drop a piece of the orange into the syrup and immediately pick it up with a larding needle and lay it on a lightly oiled tin. Proceed the same with the rest, let get cold, neatly trim and use as directed.
This is a hard-crack sugar glaze on fresh fruit — closer to a candy-shop technique than to true candied peel. Everything depends on the syrup, which is cooked far hotter than the ten minutes suggests to a modern reader.
- The syrup is the whole recipeHalf a pound of granulated sugar (a little over a cup) with a single tablespoon of water is essentially dry sugar; ten minutes of hard boiling will carry it to the hard-crack stage, 300–310F, if not beyond. Use a thermometer rather than a clock, and pull it off the heat the moment it reaches temperature, before it colours.
- "Peel and skin thoroughly"Remove the rind, then all the white pith and the thin membrane over each segment. Any membrane left on traps juice, which will bleed into the hot syrup and make it seize or spit.
- The forty-five minutes matterLaying the segments thick side down on paper, as the recipe directs, dries the surface. Wet fruit dropped into 300F sugar spatters and the coating will not set clear. Blot again just before dipping.
- Copper basinAn unlined copper sugar pan conducts evenly and shows the syrup's colour clearly. A heavy stainless saucepan works; avoid nonstick and avoid anything thin, which will scorch the sugar in the last thirty seconds.
- Larding needleA long steel needle for threading fat through meat, used here simply as a dipping spike. A bamboo skewer, a fine metal skewer or a candy dipping fork does the same job.
- Lightly oiled tinA neutral-oiled baking sheet. A silicone mat is easier and releases without oil at all.
- Work fast, and off the heatYou have only a couple of minutes before the syrup thickens past use. Do not reheat it more than once — reheated hard-crack sugar darkens quickly and turns bitter.
- HumidityHard-crack sugar on fresh fruit draws moisture from the air and from the orange itself. These are a same-day sweet, best within a few hours; they will go sticky overnight and cannot be stored.
- YieldTwo oranges give roughly 18–24 segments — a garnish or petit-four quantity, and "use as directed" points the cook to another recipe elsewhere in the book.
Glazed fruit of this kind belongs to the professional pastry kitchen rather than the home one, which is why the instructions assume a copper sugar basin and a larding needle and end by sending the cook back to another recipe. These are glazed fruit — dipped in boiled sugar for shine and crispness — and they are distinct from properly candied fruit, where slices or peel are steeped in progressively stronger syrups over days until the sugar replaces the water in the flesh. Slow candying of that kind was one way citrus was preserved before refrigeration; this quick dip keeps nothing and was not meant to, existing to put a glassy sheen on a dessert about to go to the table.