Glace Cumquats

I have made these before and they are fruity and delicious.  The whole process takes about 7 days but it is worth the effort as to buy crystallised, or glace fruit costs an arm and a leg whereas you can produce quite a quantity for a reasonable amount of money, but there is quite a bit of time and effort invovled, which are small steps carried out on a daily basis.

My fascination with having a go at preparing my own crystallised and glace fruits started with a heavy old glass tray which I obtained from a charity shop quite a few years ago.  My initial reaction was that it would look super on the Christmas table filled with home produced sweetmeats.  That's when I started playing around with home made fruits of this type.  To start with I could not find a recipe for glace ginger, crystallised ginger or stem ginger in syrup.  My first attempt wasn't  bad and my father certainly liked it and it kept for well over a year.  Since then recipes have become available and I sort of use a combination of techniques, plus what I found out from my early attempts.  Please see separate post for glace/stem ginger.

With this recipe you have a choice of choosing to keep the Cumquats in the syrup, serving them glace, and then bottling the syrup separately.  The syrups should never be discarded as they can be used to make a refreshing drink, added to fresh fruit salads to pep them up a bit, or poured over ice cream.  Mmmh!

Anyway I digress  you will need the following:-

1lb of cumquats

1 tablespoon of salt

1lb granulated sugar

1 pint of water

4oz granulated sugar

Method

Day 1: Wash the cumquats well and prick each one about eight times with a needle or a cocktail stick.  Put them in a bowl with the salt and enought water to cover.  Soak overnight.

Day 2: Drain the cumquats and rinse to remove any of the salt.  Fill a pan with fresh water and add the cumquats cover the pan and bring to the boil.  Simmer until the cumquats are tender approximately 30 to 50 minutes.  Drain and put into a bowl.  At the same time make a syrup with 1lb sugar and water.  When it becomes clear it is ready.  Pour the syrup over the cumquats and leave to stand overnight

Day 3: Drain the syrup off the cumquats and put it into a saucepan adding 2oz extra sugar. Bring to the boil and when clear pour over the cumquats leave to stand for 48 hours.

Day 5: Repeat day 3 process.

Day 7: Drain the cumquats, reserving the syrup.  *Roll the cumquats in granulated sugar and place on a wire rack and dry in a very slow oven*.  Store in an air-tight tin or wide necked bottle.

Variation: Instead of drying the cumquats just place the cumquats into the syrup in jars and miss out the instruction between the * and*