Recipe for Orange Marmalade

Introduction

Orange marmalade is made with a special kind of orange, traditionally known here in Britain as "Seville Oranges": they appear on the market in late January each year and are available only for a couple of weeks. They are very different from dessert orange varieties (you would not consider eating them raw!). In any case, I would not make marmalade from any ordinary dessert citrus fruit (oranges, lemons, grapefruit, limes, whatever) in GB, as the skins will have been treated with unspeakable chemicals to prevent them from going mouldy.

The recipe given here (in Imperial measurements) was adapted from one I got from my mother, and my original script is dated 20 Jan 1968.

Ingredients

Seville oranges, Sugar, Water.

For every 2 lb of oranges, use 5 lb of sugar and 5 (Imperial) pints of water. (USA readers may need to know that 5 Imperial pints are pretty close to 6 US pints).

Metric equivalents would be 1 kg oranges, 2.5 kg sugar, and 3 ltr water.

Equipment

A simple squeezer is handy (thing with a fluted dome onto which you press the halves of fruit, and some kind of rack or gate in it that traps the pips/seeds). A container is needed for soaking: I use a small food-grade polythene bucket. Do not use clear plastics (some of them get attacked by the fruit) nor metal bowls for this; glazed earthenware is also not advised. For dealing with the peels, I shred a proportion with a sharp knife, and mince the rest in a "Spong" mincer; there are special peel slicers available that would do a neat job, but I don't find them necessary, and they clutter up the store cupboard for the rest of the year. A boilable bag (mine is nylon, from a home brew suppliers).

For the actual boiling, a metal pan is fine: I use an aluminium "jam kettle" (English term) = "jelly pan" (Scots). The best weapon for stirring is a large wooden spoon.

A little theory

I added this part when I realised from emails that some readers could not quite understand what was going on here, or were confused by my terminology. Let's take a look at the construction of an orange. The outer coat is what we call the "peel", it consists of a thick white skin with a thin outer orange-coloured layer: we are going to use all of this in the recipe. Inside of that outer peel, the fruit is made up of individual segments, which inside are flesh and juice, and also contain seeds (which in Britain we call "pips"). The flesh and juice is wanted in the recipe, but you certainly don't want those pips in your marmalade. The segments are enclosed a kind of skin which, in order to avoid confusing it with the outer peel, I am now calling "membrane" in the text below. You can put that into the marmalade if you want (e.g by mincing it up), but many people find it makes the marmalade too bitter for their taste.

Jam sets by means of "pectin", which is contained in most kinds of fruit (a few fruits, e.g strawberries, don't have enough, but it's no problem with oranges). We're going to extract some more pectin from the pips and the membranes, which is why the recipe tells you to put those into a bag and boil them together with the fruit, up till the point where you are going to add sugar (see the recipe for details).

Method

Wash the fruit well, discarding any damaged parts. Halve the fruits, squeeze them, and put the juice into the bucket. The pips etc. that got retained in the gate of the squeezer, you put into the nylon bag. Use the bowl of a spoon to scrape the remaining membranes out of the peels, and add those to the nylon bag too, leaving just the peels to be dealt with in the next step.

Now I would shred about a third of the peels with a sharp knife, and mince the rest. Depending on how you like your marmalade, you could shred then all, or put them through a slicer, or mince them all. Put the shredded/minced peels into the bucket along with the juice; tie up the nylon bag and put that in also. Now add about half of the measured amount of cold water: (you can add more of it, if the bucket is big enough to take it). Cover the bucket and leave it in a cool place at least overnight, or even for 24 hours. This soaking is an essential part of the recipe: the results won't be nearly as good if you try to omit it.

After the soaking, put the contents of the bucket, including the nylon bag of pips, into the jam kettle, and add the remainder of the measured amount of water. Bring carefully to the boil, and simmer gently for as long as is required to get the shredded peels tender. This is likely to take an hour or more of gentle simmering: a sample of peel should feel quite tender if rubbed between thumb and finger, and if sugar is added too soon, the peel can become leathery.

When the peels are properly tender, it's time to remove the bag of pips (allowing any liquid in the bag to drain back into the jam kettle: it contains pectin that helps the jam to set well); the contents of the bag will be discarded, and the bag laundered for future use.

Add the sugar into the jam kettle and bring back to the boil, stirring to make sure the sugar does not "catch" on the pan. When the sugar is fully dissolved, bring the pan to a full rolling boil and keep it boiling (relaxing the heat only if the marmalade threatens to froth over). If a white scum forms on the surface, skim it off and discard it (this is quite normal); a little translucent foam is harmless and can be ignored. With experience one learns to recognize the developments, in terms of the appearance of the jam and the slightly sticky sound of the bubbling, but it's difficult to describe them: you just have to keep taking samples onto a cool plate and see what they do. It's difficult to predict how long this will take, but half an hour of brisk boiling would not be untypical. When the samples start to form a distinct "skin" on the test plate within a couple of minutes, the marmalade is "done" and should be taken off the heat. While still hot (this kills any mould spores that might be around), ladle it into jars. Be careful: dropping hot jam onto your feet etc. could be a serious matter, so work safely.

Nowadays, (my mother would not like me to admit) I collect screw-top jars that had contained shop-bought jams, and re-use them with their screw tops, instead of using the traditional jampot covers.

Favorite Snack

A favourite snack is a slice of one of the light English cheeses, such as Lancashire or Wensleydale, grilled on toast and with orange marmalade spread on top. Wholemeal toast, naturally ;-)

Yummy!