Dishing it up with Marmalade.

I have been making marmalade lately – cumquat marmalade, to be exact – thanks to a friend with a tree in the family. For the first time in living memory, this extended family may have more marmalade than it can eat on breakfast toast (true marmalade afficionadosof course do not think there is any such thing as too much of the good thing.) So, what to do with it? Eat more breakfast toast, I say – and plenty of butter too, if you please But there are other ideas.

You could, for example, treat it as jam (true marmalade-lovers don’t agree that true marmalade is the same as orange jam) and make chutney from it. The recipe is here, and it would, methinks, be quite interesting. You could try one of the Marmalade Pudding recipes which we have also had before on this blog (they are here, and here.)

I have a few more new/old ideas for that marmalade surplus:

Various authors suggest it be spooned on top of ice-cream, to make a Marmalade Sundae, or thinning it down to make Marmalade Sauce for a plain pudding, or spread on the bread you are going to make into bread-and-butter pudding. Miss Eliza Leslie suggests it as a filling for a cake:

Marmalade Cake.

Make a batter as for queen-cake, and bake it in small tin rings on a griddle. Beat white of egg, and powdered loaf-sugar according to the preceding receipt, flavouring it with lemon. When the batter is baked into cakes, and they are quite cool, spread over each a thick .ayer of marmalade, and then heap on with a spoon the icing or white of egg and sugar. Pile it high, and set the cakes in a moderate oven till the icing is coloured of a very pale brown.

Directions for Cookery in all its Branches (1844)

I rather like this idea for a different type of marmalade cake:

Orange Nut Bread

1 cup pecans, Persian walnuts, or hickory nuts, chopped

½ cup orange marmalade

2 ½ cups sifted flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 ¼ teaspoons salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons melted butter or other fat.

Sift together the dry ingredients and add the nuts. Add the milk and eggs, and stir until just moistened. Stir in the orange marmalade and the fat, and pour into a well-greased bread pan. Bake in a moderate oven (350° F.) for about 1 hour, or until lightly browned.

If desired, shredded orange rind cooked in a sirup may be used in place of the marmalade. Use the rind of one orange, or three-fourths of a cup of thinly shredded rind. Cover the rind with water, and cook for 20 minutes; then drain. Make a sirup of one-half cup of sugar and one-fourth cup of water. Cool, add the rind, and cook with very little stirring until about 2 tablespoons of sirup are left; then cool before adding to the bread mixture.

Miscellaneous Publications, U.S Dept Agriculture, 1938, Elizabeth Fuller Whiteman.