Any one else marmalade making today?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

any one else making marmalade today

hoping it goes ok, am so tired it could go terribly wrong but a busy week means that if I want marmalade it has to be today.

Am trying river cottages whole orange method - was a revelation that I got from here that you can do it this way.

oranges are simmering at the moment, been going for about 15 minutes

ooh! Never made marmalade actually. Only jam.
Can you post the recipe?

I maramalised yesterday, and now have eight jars of it, looking very twinkly and orange. I don't really like it, so it's mainly for DH. It was supposed to have Scotch in it, but we had none, and the bottle of JD we had disappeared to a poker game, so it is marmalade with SoCo and a little bit of vanilla. I used a recipe I saw linked on here from David Lebovitz.

I'm doing 1.5kg of oranges and 2 lemons. Add 2.5l of water and simmer for 2-2.5hours. Then when cool enough to handle remove oranges, cut in half, remove pips, shred. Add to liquid, add 2kg of sugar. stir and heat, making sure all the sugar has dissolved. Bring to boil and boil hard til setting point (10-15 mins?) leave to cool for 15 mins or so before putting into jars. (recipe courtesy of river cottage)

Sounds very nice Umami I think I might have accidentally finished our scotch last night

I hate it when you accidentally finish the Scotch

The worst bit is pip removal, as the Sevilles have so many - the Lebovitz recipe puts the pips in a muslin beforehand to make it easier.

I do hate the pips. stupid things! last year, I didn't realise that dhs straining bag (for wine!) was made of a synthetic material. It melted and stuck to the bottom of the pan. Absolute pain to get off the pan! marmalade still tasted ok though.

Mmm, I'm doing marmalade too.

BUT I have 12 oranges, my recipe calls for 1kg which is 9 of them. Should I scale the recipe up by a 1/3 or can you do anything else with Sevilles? Can you eat them 'raw'?

don't eat them raw! I'd scale up your recipe instead.

There's a beautiful blog post here with some ideas for Sevilles, Betty. I wanted to make vin d'orange for Christmas but you can't get the oranges in time!

oh wow, that is food porn!

it took forever. blasted thing wouldn't set with that recipe so I had to use the pips and as I couldn't find my muslin I tied them up in part of an old t-shirt of dds. Still not quite convinced it will set.

Think I might have gone wrong somewhere. resipe said it gave 5 x 1lb jars and I ended up with 9!

Mine has been bubbling away forever, too.

Will it set eventually? If I boil it to buggery??

Mine took probably less than 30 minutes to set. It might be worth upping the sugar? Or cut a lemon in half, squeeze in the juice and then throw the lemon halves in for a bit of extra pectin (fishing them out when you're done). Have you got a sugar thermometer?

No thermometer, have been tipping a bit on a saucer from the freezer to see whether it sets.

Will try the lemon tip, thanks.

I should have added more sugar I reckon. dh and I had a 'discussion'. next time I listen to me!

Somewhere on here I read 'Always, always add more sugar than the recipe says' I only added an extra 200g, but that was because it was so very bitter more than to help the set. I may give it a taste tomorrow.

I don't have time to reboil tomorrow, so unless it sets properly we have 9lb of orange syrup!

ah well, next year......

I just made mine (mostly) and then realized that I have no jars! Will have to re-boil tomorrow. I actually used less sugar than called for because I couldn't bring myself to use 1.5 kg of sugar. Is the taste when boiling the same as the final taste when set? (If you taste it after the sugar has dissolved?)

oh no about the jars!!!!! oops. I think the taste does remain the same.

How goes it today, marmaladies? Have they set? Have we jars? Is it inedible?

Mine is delicious, but a bit runny still. Oh well, I can live with that.

I made a batch at the weekend. Started process on Saturday - cutting up, boiling pith etc (sounds disgusting) and finished it Sunday afternoon. Eight more big jars of marmalade now in the store cupboard.
A normal batch should take about 25 minutes to reach setting point provided it has been cooked on high. I ran out of time (had to collect DS) so reboiled for a few minutes later and the marmalade set fine.

Ah, that's fine, just name it 'Soft-set marmalade'!
Mine is going to be 'chunky' or 'rustic' or 'hand-cut', because I was a bit shoddy with shredding the peel finely!

I did some last weekend with 100gm Root Ginger (bruised) for 3lbs Sevilles. It only went in on the final boil-up (in a muslin - well, actually an old tea towel). Gave it a very mild taste of Ginger, nothing too strong.

where did you all get your seville oranges from? my sainsburys don't have any in

Mine were from our farm shop (which isn't really a farm shop so much as a big gastro-deli place that happens to be near a farm!).