ISSUE 41, CONFECTIONERY, Part 4: Cider Marmalade
Cider Marmalade
When refined sugar became cheap in the United States in the mid-1820s an explosion of jams, jellies, preserves, fruit wines, and candies occurred. Sugar baking became a branch of cookery that household cooks had to master. Professional confectioners set the bar for practice, marrying jellies, puff paste, sugar glazes, custards into wondrous composite creations. But in the countryside a kind of folk confectionery revolution took place. Old dishes were sugar charged and wonderfully evocative things came into existence: tomato figs (tomatoes preserved in sugar), taffy, groundnut cakes, and cider pie.
The western part of Virginia was apple country, and besides the usual apple pies, apple butter, apple cake, and apple ice cream, a creation came into being in the mid-19th century that was both homey and splendid: cider marmalade. We usually think of marmalade being made with acid and bitter fruits—Seville oranges, lemons, even limes. But one of the interesting quality of apples is that among the diverse varieties that came into being there were numbers that tended to the acid side of things. Crab apples were almost wholly there. So the same push pull between sour and sweet you find in orange marmalade, can find an analog in cider marmalade, provided you choose the proper acidic apple (Granny Smith’s often come to mind among pie bakers).
This recipe from Virginia gives the basic formula, but is valuable for intructions on how to kettle cook the apple slurry. Students of American foodways will recognize the first step as creating a sweet cider reduction that his part way to boiled cider, the New England delicacy.
If you are looking for another harvest season flavor—this may be it.