Orange marmalade
Orange marmalade is a preserve that sets itself, provided you do not throw away what looks like waste. A great deal of the pectin sits in the pips and white membranes — tied in muslin and boiled with the peel, they give up a thick gel that makes jam sugar and shop pectin unnecessary. The second condition is just as simple: the peel must soften before the sugar goes in, because in the thick syrup it barely softens at all.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Cutting the fruit 40 min
- Softening the peel 60 min
- Boiling with sugar 30 min
- Jarring 25 min
Step by step
0 / 9 doneScrub the fruit in boiling water
Scald the oranges and lemons and scrub them with a brush. The peel stays in the jar and is the main ingredient here, so the wax and preservatives on shop fruit have to come off. Unwaxed fruit from a source you trust is best.
Ingredients: 1000 g oranges · 2 pcs lemons · 1500 ml water
Juice the fruit and tie the pips in muslin
Halve the fruit, squeeze the juice into a pan, and pick out every pip and white membrane into a square of muslin, then tie it into a bag. This is not tidying up — that bag holds a large share of the pectin. Without it the marmalade sets much more weakly, even after long boiling.
Ingredients: 1000 g oranges · 2 pcs lemons · 1500 ml water
Shred the peel
Scrape out the remaining pulp with a spoon and cut the peel into shreds as thick as you want them in the jar — fine threads give a delicate marmalade, thick strips the traditional British one. The thickness will not change during cooking.
Ingredients: 1000 g oranges · 2 pcs lemons · 1500 ml water
The thickness of the shred defines the marmalade.Simmer the peel for an hour until fully soft
Cover the peel, juice and muslin bag with the water and simmer gently, uncovered, for an hour, until the liquid has reduced by about a third. Test with your fingers: a shred should squash without resistance. This is the only window in which the peel can soften — once the sugar is in, it practically stops softening and stays as it was.
Ingredients: 1000 g oranges · 2 pcs lemons · 1500 ml water
Squeeze the bag into the pan
Lift out the bag, let it cool for a few minutes and squeeze everything out of it over the pan. A thick, sticky gel will run out — that is the pectin the bag was there for. The last drops are the most valuable.
Ingredients: 1000 g oranges · 2 pcs lemons · 1500 ml water
Thick gel from the bag — the pectin that will set the marmalade.Dissolve the sugar over low heat
Add the sugar and stir over low heat until it has completely dissolved — only then turn the heat up. Undissolved crystals scorch on the base and cause crystallisation in the jar, and neither can be fixed afterwards.
Ingredients: 1000 g sugar
Boil hard to 104.5°C
Boil hard and uncovered for 20–30 minutes (longer in a narrower pan), to 104.5°C. Without a thermometer, use a cold saucer from the freezer: after a minute a blob should wrinkle under your finger rather than run. Repeat every 5 minutes, taking the pan off the heat while you test.
Ingredients: 1000 g sugar
Big glossy bubbles and 104.5°C — the setting point.Rest 10 minutes before potting
Take it off the heat, skim the scum and leave it for 10 minutes. The marmalade needs to thicken slightly so the shreds hang evenly in it. Potted immediately, the peel floats to the top and every jar ends up with a layer of clear jelly underneath.
Ingredients: 1000 g sugar
Pot into sterilised jars
Ladle the boiling marmalade into hot, sterilised jars — cold glass can crack. Leave 1 cm of headspace, seal at once and process for 10 minutes in a pan of hot water reaching three-quarters of the way up the jars. Lift out and leave to cool. The lid should dip and click.
Ingredients: 1000 g sugar
Hot marmalade into hot jars, never the other way round.
Before you start
Seville oranges
The bitter Seville season is short — roughly from late December to February. They carry more pectin and a pronounced bitterness — which is the whole point of traditional marmalade. Ordinary eating oranges give a sweeter, paler result that is still good.
Letting it mature
Marmalade is at its best after a month, when the bitterness mellows and blends with the sweetness. Processed, it keeps for a year somewhere dark and cool, and a month in the fridge once open.
Whisky or ginger
A glass of whisky stirred in off the heat is the Scottish classic. A few slices of fresh ginger added to the pip bag give a warm, spiced note.