New Years Marmalade

It’s the time of the year for marmalade, the Seville oranges have been in the shops and thoughts are directed to making a years supply of marmalade. The reason for this sudden desire to slice 6 pounds of oranges is two fold. It tastes better and it’s cheaper!

For several years now I’ve put the oranges in a food processor to chop them, but this year I decided to slice by hand. Oh my word, I was so surprised how pleasant it was to sit and slice the oranges by hand (with a nice serrated steak knife) in the quiet. A very simple life thing to do, and it was easier to extract the pips too!

Once the sliced oranges have soaked over night they are meant to be simmered to reduce the liquid by a third. When I had heated the the water in the pan and added the sugar I realised I hadn’t done that!!!

I managed to rescue it by taking some liquid out, adding more sugar and a bottle of liquid pectin. Here on my pantry shelf are twenty jars of marmalade. I now feel like Moomin Mama and I have a very happy husband!

It tastes exceptionally good too 🙂

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Blood Orange Marmalade

When I saw the blood oranges were in season on the market stall I like to use (nice un-packaged fruit and veg) I thought I would try making some marmalade with them to see what it was like. I should have worked out the costings so I could share with you how little you can pay, but I forgot to record it so I might add it later.

They are not very attractive are they? 
..but look how pretty they are inside!
I chop my oranges in my food processor for quickness. ..
….then the marmalade is all pulpy and nice.
I did have some trouble with the recipe I found, so had to do some adaptation from my normal Seville orange marmalade recipe to get it right. Trust me, if you have a go at preserving and it doesn’t work out, it could be the recipe and not you!

Here it is, yum! It’s very perfumed compared to other marmlade I’ve made. I collect and re-use jars, keeping the pretty jars for me, they look nice in the pantry, and fill some plainer jars so I have some to give away 🙂

Seville Orange Marmalade

Woohoo – I actually made my marmalade last week 🙂 Luckily Seville oranges do last quite a while if kept in a cool place. My husband  feels much happier now that the pantry is stocked with marmalade!

I’ve posted the recipe before, so if you want it, just look in my tags. 🙂

Marmalade Making

I’m sure I’ve posted about my marmalade before, but I do like to encourage people to enjoy life and do some lovely things. This is my favourite recipe from a little folder of recipes I bought not long after we were married.

I’m giving you lots of pictures as well as the recipe to encourage you to have a go!
I always put my chopping board on a tray to save any juice that runs while chopping.
After removing the pips (see bowl on the right) you can either slice them by hand or in a food processor.
The oranges and pips soak over night (I cover with a clean cloth to avoid any contamination).
Adding the sugar to melt before bringing to the boil. You can use Brown, raw or white sugar depending on the colour/strength of marmalade you like.
The finished stuff!

Here’s the recipe, just ignore my scribbles!
Enjoy and happy home making! 🙂

Marmalade – finally it’s done!

Yes it’s finally made…….

…although I do still have a few oranges left! I try and make enough preserves to last us the year as we are aiming for the self-sufficiency thing! This marmalade is made nice and dark by adding a couple of table spoons of treacle, which is cheaper than buying brown sugar.

Frugal Lemon and Orange Marmalade!

Well I heard a tip a while ago about saving squeezed lemons and freezing them to use for making marmalade when you have enough.

 

Well I’ve been saving my citrus and yesterday I made some lemon and orange mamalade with my saved squeezed out  citrus and it’s really yummy! I adapted a recipe I had and it worked out fine, just took a while longer to come to setting point.

1.5kg/3lb of citrus
3 litres/5 pints of water
3kg/6lb sugar

for 9 or 10 1lb jars ( wash 2 or 3 extra just in case)

Put chopped your or sliced friut into preserving pan with the water ( pips removed) and bring to the boil, then simmer for 2 hrs. Turn down the heat then gradually add the sugar and stir until melted. Turn the heat back up to the boil and continue boiling until setting point is reached.

Meanwhile I sterilised the jars by washing  the jars in hot soapy water and rinsed them in hot water place on a baking sheet in the oven on 100c ready for potting.

Setting point is reached when  a teaspoon oj your mamalade on a cold saucer crinkles when you push your finger across it or obviously if you have a jam themometer you can use that.

Take your pan off the heat and then pot in your warm jars and put on the lids straight away, you can use a cloth to hold the jars as then will be very hot by this stage.

I used our John Bull printing set to make the labels just cause it’s fun.