A Year in Preserving. To begin - Marmalade

I have blogged on many occasions about marmalade. I am not going to re-hash any of those posts, surface is to say, like most jams and preserves home made marmalade is always better than anything you can buy in a shop. Below I have written my simple marmalade recipe. Please feel free to play with this recipe, add booze (whisky and brandy work well though I've never tried rum), mix up the sugars maybe to add some richness.

Seville Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
1kg Seville oranges
2kg Granulated sugar
2 ltr water

Cut all the oranges in half, scoop out the flesh and some of the pith of each half with a tea spoon.

Squeeze all the juice you can out of the flesh and pips, add this liquid to a large pan. Wrap the pulp and pips up in a square of muslin, tied at the top Dick Whittington style, attach this to the side of the pan with another length of string.

All of the skins and pith must now be shredded. I have been lent an antique to help with this - The Magic Marmalade shredder. This Victorian piece of kit was a joy to use and after over 100 years could still do the job!

All the shreds need to be added to the pan with the pith bag, squeezed juice and add the water. This is then boiled for about 90 minutes.

Now lift out the pith bag with a pair of tongs and place it in a sieve. Gently squeeze the bag gently with the tongs over the boil. Do not touch this with your hands it will be as hot as the sun! then discard all the pith.
Now the sugar should be added and stir until it is all dissolved. Bring the pan to the boil and continue to boil until the setting point is reached.
Setting point is the almost magical point where sugar, acid and pectin conspire to produce a solid jelly at room temperature; it is the basis of all jams! The simplest of tests for setting point is the wrinkle test. The wrinkle test is carried out by placing a small plate in the fridge at the start of your preserving session. When the marmalade has been boiling for a while and appears to be thickening, get the plate out and dribble a small droplet onto the cold plate, leave it for a few minutes and then push the droplet with a finger (be careful it may still be hot). If the droplet wrinkles, then you have reached setting point.
Take the pot off the heat and leave it alone for about 5 minutes, there is likely to be a scum on the top. Now is the time to pot up your marmalade. I do this by pushing the scum to one side and using a special funnel.

At the end you will be left with the scum, I pop this into a spare jar and keep it for use in recipes that require marmalade (a cheats sweet and sour sauce, marmalade cake, etc).
I like to hand write my labels, but whether you print them or write them it is vital that you clearly label what the product is and the date it was made. I have some mystery chutneys from a few years back and i'm a little scared to try them!

There are about three weeks more of the Seville orange season left this recipe will make you about 7 standard pots for the rest of the year so its probably worth doing two or three batches! Homemade marmalade is nearly always better than anything you could buy in a shop at any price, it is supposed to be bitter and sweet. It was once said that it should be, to the taste buds as a cold shower is to the rest of the body first thing in the morning. Happy preserving!