Easy Marmalade

When I retired I became a little obsessed with preserving and pickling and finally had the time to make marmalade in the way I had watched my grandmother do as I grew up. I studied various recipes, as is my wont, and finally settled on the one with the least faff involved. Now in my third year of making marmalade I have tried a couple of other recipes but still keep coming back to the one that I find the easiest. Why make a project harder than necessary? Although the original recipe came from the book: 'Jams and Chutneys by Thane Prince' I have amended it a little as I found the quantities a bit too unpredictable. They stated 7 Seville oranges but how big is an orange? This year the oranges were much smaller than those I've used previously. Therefore I have merged the recipe with one I have also used from Riverford which gives specific weights. I have also found it beneficial to have a formula for calculating how much sugar is needed in relation to the liquid yielded.

Ingredients:

• 1.5kg Seville oranges
• 2 lemons
• 1.8kg granulated sugar

Method:

• Scrub the fruit and place in preserving pan with enough water to cover fruit (I used 2.2 litres of water). 

At this stage I boil the fruit in a large stockpot which seems to prevent too much evaporation, uses less space on the hob and also my preserving pan doesn't have a lid!

• Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for 50 - 60 minutes until the fruit is very soft. Remove from the heat, lift out the fruit and allow to cool.

• Meanwhile measure the liquid and make up to 2 litres with water. Pour into the preserving pan and stir in the sugar.

• Recipes vary in whether to mince, chop or slice the fruit and flesh. I like to cut into quarters and then scrape out the bulk of the flesh and pips and add to a muslin bag. I have tried tying a muslin square with string but now I use a jelly bag and just adjust the size by twisting any spare fabric. I then thinly slice the quartered fruit. I have found that stacking two or three pieces together makes this a little quicker.

So many people comment that making marmalade is time consuming and hard work. I actually find that slicing the orange skins is a very mindful activity and for me it is a vital part of the magic in creating sunshine in a jar.

• Add the sliced fruit to the preserving pain with the bag of pips and flesh. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

• Increase the heat and cook at a full rolling boil for 10 - 15 minutes until the marmalade has reached setting point. I have found that this takes much longer than anticipated but it may be due to my very old aluminum pan and I hope that a shiny new stainless steel one will hold the heat better. Keep testing for setting point every 2-3 minutes until achieved.

 I'm not going to go into the details of how you check for setting point, I suggest you google the different methods. Suffice to say that I am an old fashioned girl and use the cold saucer wrinkle test that was good enough when I was at school and is still reliable today. I don't need fancy thermometers or anything more complicated than a saucer and freezer.

• Remove the muslin bag and squeeze out any liquid as it is rich in pectin. Pot the marmalade in sterilised jars, seal and label. 
• This year I made a variation in adding 80ml of Amaretto to the pan and stirred through prior to pouring into jars.

If you find that you have differing quantities of liquid you can adjust the amount of sugar  proportionately. The principle is that for every 500ml of liquid you need 450g sugar. With this knowledge you can play around with any ingredients and create your own little jar of sunshine.

I hope that you find this as easy and tasty as we do. You need to like a bitter marmalade to enjoy this, but that is exactly what I like about it. If you'd rather have something less bitter substitute a couple of Seville oranges for sweet oranges.  Watch this space for another post featuring grapefruits. I discovered pink grapefruit marmalade last year and now I am a convert. Although there may be dozens of different recipes out there I can't imagine myself ever deviating from this tried and tested delight.