Marmalade Madness

As I promised I would tell you about my marmalade making. The process is really quite simple; it’s just a matter of combining fruit, namely citrus fruit, with sugar and water and heating the mixture. Today, however, this simple process took me an age to complete.

The first lot of ‘Three Fruits Marmalade’ was done in a trice and I’ve got to say it tastes fabulous (Well if you can’t blow your own trumpet what’s the point.) but the ‘Seville Orange Marmalade’ was an absolute pain. Problem was getting it up to the correct temperature to allow setting to take place. I had decided due to high demand to make double quantities and use a bigger pan. I realise now this was a mistake because conventional home hobs cannot cope with the bigger pans. Never mind a bit of careful pouring of molten hot marmalade into smaller pans resulted in some equally tasty marmalade in the end. 

To create your own ‘Three Fruits Marmalade you’ll need:

1 Grapefruit 

2 Seville Oranges

2 Large Lemons (un- waxed if possible)

3kgs Jam making sugar

2 litres water plus fruit juices

Method

Place two saucers in freezer to be used for testing setting point

Wash fruit and cut in to halves

Squeeze juice from fruit and retain pips place these in muslin square.

 

Place juice from the fruit in to a jug and make up to 2 litres with water place this into a large sauce pan (approx 7-10 litre with heavy base.

Remove pith and remainder of fruit from the peel place with pips in the muslin square

Slice peel into strands and then place this into the water juice mix

Tie up muslin square with fruit and pips and then place into the rind water fruit juice mix. Ensure muslin bag is immersed in the juice peel mix and tie to sauce pan handle. You need the pips and pith to add pectin (the setting agent in jam and marmalade making) into the mix.

Bring pan to boil then allow to simmer for about 1 hr or until the peel is soft.

When the peel is soft remove from heat and remove muslin bag of pips etc. allow this to cool for a while then squeeze out the juicy sticky fluid from the bag. I have found emptying the contents of the bag into a fine sieve the rubbing it through the sieve with a wooden spoon is the best way to get all the pectin out of the pip pith residue, add this to pan with cooked peel. 

The pith pips mushy stuff yo be [ressed through sieve.

 

Place several washed jars into an oven set at 50 to warm up. Note you cannot put hot jam into cool jars they’ll just break  

Clean jars on tray for warming

Add sugar to the pan with cooked peel and gradually bring up to the boil ensuring all the sugar is dissolved before boiling point is reached.

Bring to rolling boil (sugar thermometer 104 degrees) stirring to prevent sticking. Keep it at this temperature for 15 mins. Test for setting using one of the saucers from freezer if marmalade forms a sticky resistant blob when poured on saucer its okay to got into jars if not heat for longer and test again

Let mixture cool for about 10 minutes

Pour into jars label and lid

The finished item just label