Its marmalade time!

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Well, later this week anyway. riverford have their 'marmalade kit' available which must mean seville oranges are here. Hooray!

yay! i'm a first-timer. can't wait.

it is very worth it - one of those small satisfying things that makes you all proud and if you ever need an emergency adult gift (for dinner party or what not) a jar of marmalade is ace!

I bought some seville oranges, and then my sister brought some over as well so it looks like I have a few batches to make.

Does anyone have a good recipe they can recommend?

I've never made marmalade but have made jams. I'm actually not a fan, but DH is and as BadKitten says, I find this sort of project very satisfying and look forward to building up my emergency adult gift stash!

ooh - mine is on the stove right now! Love it. SparkyUK - I always use Delia's recipe (google it) - works brilliantly. Ingredients are 2lbs oranges, 4 pints water, 1 lemon, 4lbs sugar. Makes 6lbs.

Oh YUM. I use Delia's recipe too, but after putting half in jars I stir a a couple of teaspoons of ginger through the rest (then put in jars too).

Don't forget to make a Seville orange meringue pie and some Seville orange ice cream while they are available.

I make it every year but am super lazy, so I boil the oranges whole first, then cut in half, take our pips and then shove all the rest in the food processor. Then I sift through it quickly to cut up any rogue chunks by hand, then boil up with water, lemon juice and preserving sugar. Much quicker and much less messy. Not muslins and all that crap.

PatientGriselda, which kind of ginger do you use? Just grated fresh ginger root? Or powder? Or one of the candied varieties? I'd like to make a ginger batch but all the recipes seem to call for the latter, while all i have is fresh or powdered.

i can't bear ginger - any other ideas for mixing with half a batch? (will do half just orange)

recipe or link to orange marmalade needed please

Delia's

oh poo, thanks for that I meant the ice cream recipe

Nigel Slater

i make jam but never have made marmelade before. is it easy?

MOLLYROGER, although it is fairly long-winded compared to jam, it is not difficult. You just need to be on hand to stir it so as not to have a sticky-gooey lump of toffee I had with one batch last year when I left it simmering whilst I took No.2 son back to school!

A combination I like is orange with grapefruit.

re the ginger - I wouldnt worry and just go ahead and use freshly grated or powdered; they will give a slightly different consistency but the flavour will be there

i made mine on sunday, it is delicious. plus dh helped while the baby napped and we put music on loud, so he did half the juicing/chopping.

i love it when i get the odd chunk of lemon peel on my toast, and always wonder what would happen if i increased the proportion of lemons to oranges, or even made an entirely lemon version?

i lerv lemon marmalade!

"do I really need muslins?"
Depends on the recipe you are following. I follow a recipe where the fruit is softened (by cooking in pressure cooker) and the pectin from the pith and pips is extracted before the sugar is added and the marmalade is finally cooked.
Instead of a muslin you could use an old (boiled/sterilised) drying up cloth.

No you don't need muslins. Reading the River Cottage Preserves handbook, it says that for years it was believed that the pectin needed to achieve the set was found in the pips, which is what the muslin is for. Its since been discovered there is plenty enough pectin in the skin alone, so you can just discard the pips and use the juice, a little pulp if there's any left and the cut up skin.

If you're not using a food proc, make sure you cut up the skin really thinly, as by the time its boiled and then had sugar added it swells considerably, so what starts off looking like a small strip can triple in width, iyswim. This is one of the reasons I boil the whole oranges first, as you can see the swelled size then and just need to add on a little swelling once they have absorbed the sugar.

I made mine last weekend. If I do say so myself, my best batch ever!

def don't need muslins as taffeta says. I used one once and somehow welded it to the bottom of the pan.

mmmm orange toffee!

Yay. I made a batch last week and have another kilo of seville oranges in the freezer. Am thinking about doing a gingery one with them. Though Patientgriselda's recipes are tempting me now...

My tip - stick the whole oranges in a slow cooker for 8 hours to cook so you don't have to worry over boiling pans dry and the like.

I used the River Cottage preserves recipe for the quantities, but I like mine really dark and chunky so I used part brown sugar part granulated and I also added a tbs of black treacle.

Now I just have to stop myself from eating big hunks of toast and butter and marmalade every day.

So, I made my first batch of me'ade this weekend and now I have a few follow-up questions

Are little wax discs really necessary? With Jam we just used the sterilsed jam jar lids and didn't bother with anything else so that's what I've done with the marmalade but have noticed that EVERY recipe seems to call for wax paper lids.

Also, I sterlised the jam jars by putting them in a hot oven, but I did this at the beginning of the process and then left them in there. I boiled the lids and them left them in the water so that by the time it came time to fill them, they were only warm rather than piping hot. Does this mean they are less than sterilsed and should I set about getting through that batch of maramalde asap?

Lastly, after filling and closing up the jars, I set about tiding the kitchen. We heard one loud pop! and said horrah, as we took that as one of the jars being properly sealed. We then left andI had assumed that the other jars would also follow suit. However, this morning I poked the center of the jar lids and one does that clicky-clacky pokey in and out thing. Does that mean that one didn't get sealed?

TIA