This
is the second time I have made Orange
Marmalade and this time I took some short cuts – and it still worked out
ok. The first time I slavishly followed
a recipe which said you had to juice the oranges first and then cut off the
peel (not getting any pith) and then cut the pith off and chop up the
rest. Well it took simply ages.
This
time I prepped the oranges much more simply:
I
washed them since they came from the neighbour's tree and some of them had been
laying on the ground.
Then
I roughly chopped them up – no juicing, no getting rid of the pith. I didn't even worry too much about the
pips. If I saw one and it was easy to
get to, I pulled it out. In the original
recipe it said to collect the pips and put them in a muslin bag and cook up in
the pot and remove – what a fusspot.
I
then popped it all into a stockpot (I had 1.5kg of fruit – just over 3 lb). I
added the juice of 2 lemons and the zest of one. Then in goes 5 pints (2.8litres) of
water. You simmer that away for at least
2 hours – because I had left the pith in I wanted to be sure it wasn't too
bitter so I did it for 3 hours. When I
looked into the pot at that stage I saw that some of the chunks of peel were
really chunky – so I gave it about a 10 second whizz with a stick blender. It went unclear in colour so I thought I had
blown it – but as you can see it came nice and clear when boiled up with the
sugar.
You
add 2.7 kg of sugar (which seems a lot but remember the peel etc is quite
bitter). If I had been thinking clearly
I would have substituted the stevia product I bought recently for some of it.
I
used a combination of white sugar and jam setting sugar. If you don't have jam setting sugar (which
has some added pectin), I suggest you just add the juice of another lemon. I also added a splosh of vanilla extract and
a spoonful of whiskey (both entirely optional).
Then
you boil the marmalade rapidly for 15 to 35 minutes until it sets when you test
it on a cold plate. This one took about
20 minutes. I always get very nervous at
this stage as to whether it will set and also worried about making it too set. There is no answer other than testing it
every minute or so because it can turn quickly.
Then
I let it cool in the pot for 15 minutes before decanting it into clean warm
jars through my trusty jam funnel. It
made about 9 jars. Because I don't
sterilise the jars as such, I keep this in the fridge and it will last a few
months. I also put a wax paper disc on
top of each jar which helps keep the air out.
I just made Orange Marmalade Bread this weekend and I wish had some of your wonderful marmalade to use in the recipe~ Have a great week~ Lynn @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
ReplyDeleteNow this is my kind of Orange Marmalade, simple and whisky :)
ReplyDeleteThat is absolutely lovely! I have never attempted marmalade because all the recipes are so fussy, thanks for de-mystifying it a bit! :)
ReplyDeleteNot going to lie, it's the promise of whiskey that lured me in! Orange, whiskey, and vanilla sound great together!
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking!
Delete
ReplyDeleteI would love for you to share your favorite posts and link up at my TGIF Link Party.
http://apeekintomyparadise.blogspot.com/2013/05/tgif-link-party-2.html
The party opens Thursday night and closes on Wednesday night at midnight.
Please, invite your friends to party too! The more the merrier!
Hugs, Cathy
This sounds interesting! I'll definitely try the recipe {the vanilla did the trick for me!} Thanks for linking this at our All My Bloggy Friends Party, Carole !
ReplyDeleteLinda
With A Blast
Whiskey - optional? Kerfiffle, I say - I'd call it compulsory :-) I love your no-nonsense approach to making this marmalade, which can otherwise be quite a project!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking to Sweet New Zealand - it's lovely to have you join in. Would you be good enough to just edit your post to include a link and reference to Sweet New Zealand and the host -
http://couscous-consciousness.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/sweet-new-zealand-23.html
Thanks again :-)