Seville Orange Marmalade

Marmalade, mmm...

Apologies for the lack of posts, but with the snow, holidays and work I haven’t had time to upload anything recently. I have a large back log of articles so hopefully I will manage to get one up every week from now on.

My Grandmother always made the best marmalade – I don’t think that I ever helped her make it, and the recipe I use is not her’s but at this time of year when the Seville Oranges are in season there is nothing better to do with them than make marmalade.

Ingredients

You will also need:

Method

  1. Peel the oranges, leaving as much pith on the fruit as possible
  2. Squeeze the fruit, retaining the juice and squeezed oranges
  3. Scrape as much of the white pith off the peel as you can (I use a tea spoon to do this)
  4. Chop the peel into c. 3mm strips
  5. Place all the leftover fruit and pith in to pieces of muslin and tie up to form bags
  6. Put the juice, peel and muslin bags into a preserving pan. Add the cold water to the pan. Heat the pan until everything is boiling, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours or until the peel is soft.
  7. Remove the muslin bag(s) and squeeze any liquid back in to the pan. Measure the contents of the pan and add 450g sugar for every 500ml of liquid.
  8. Gently heat for 15-20 minutes until the sugar is all dissolved. Increase the heat and boil rapidly until setting point is reached.
  9. Test that the marmalade has reached setting point by letting some cool on a wooden spoon then try to pour it off the spoon. If the marmalade forms a ‘curtain’ setting point has been reached.
  10. Skim any scum from the surface (you can dissolve it back in to the marmalade by adding a little butter but this results in a cloudy marmalade.) Leave the marmalade to cool for 10-15 minutes then pack into warm sterilised jars. Seal the jars whilst the marmalade is still warm.

Tips

Oranges and Lemons

Oranges and Lemons

Juice, pith and peel

Juice, pith and peel

Peel de-pithed

Peel de-pithed

Ready for the pan

Ready for the pan

Simmering away

Simmering away

Squeezing out the muslin bags

Squeezing out the muslin bags

Sugar

Sugar

On the boil

On the boil

Testing for set

Testing for set

Bottling

Bottling

Completed Marmalade

Completed Marmalade