Thick Cut Seville Marmalade
Ingredients:
1 kilo Seville oranges
2 lemons, wax free
1 kio granulated sugar
500mls water
Method:
Wash the oranges and take out the stalks and cut them in halves.
Juice the oranges and lemons and keep all the juice and pips together in a jug.
To slice the orange peel, place two halves of orange on top of each other and with a sharp knife slice them about 1/2cm thick. Also slice the lemons a little thinner.
Put the sliced oranges and lemons into a large saucepan with 400mls of the water, cover and simmer gently for 30minutes to soften the peel. After 30 minutes the pith will have turned semi translucent.
Turn off the heat and add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
Put back on the heat and slowly bring to the boil, stir often to stop the marmalade sticking and keep on a slow boil.
Strain the juice, keeping the pips, add the juice to the marmalade and stir in.
Put the pips in a small saucepan with 100mls of water and simmer for 5 minutes.
Strain the pectin rich liquid into the marmalade and now discard the pips.
Stir and keep on a rolling boil for 30-40minutes in total.
Meanwhile place a saucer in the fridge, when the marmalade looks ready, dark, thick and volcanic put ½ teaspoon on the cold saucer and put back in the fridge for 30seconds to cool, then take out, hold up to the light and push your finger through to see if it wrinkles, if it does its ready if not try again.
When ready take off the heat and leave for 10mins to cool a little.
To prepare the jars, wash and dry and warm them in a very low oven, the idea is to have the jar the same temperature as the marmalade so the hot marmalade doesn’t shatter the glass, the heat will also sterilise the jars.
Holding the hot jar with an oven glove with a heat proof jug or ladle pour the marmalade into the jars and immediately put on the lids, wipe off any drips when still warm and label before you forget.
Tips: For a Dark Marmalade add half muscovado sugar.
For added flavour add 250g chopped cristalised ginger and add when you take the marmalade off the heat.
For a sourer more bitter marmalade reduce the amount of sugar by a third, but you will get not such a good set.
Note on setting point. Beginners often end up with jam that is either set like tarmac, or as runny as before any boiling. To set into a soft gel, the jam requires acidity, sugar, and pectin at the right temperature. Marmalade making has enough of all three ingredients and the cooking delivers the right temperature. The trick is to boil it enough to raise the temperature to 103-105oC, when the sugar content is about 65%, but to do so quickly before both the flavour and the essential pectin are damaged. This is why this recipe uses less water than is often recommended and why using less sugar than usual is also successful.
Using less water means the setting temperature is reached quickly. But because boiling for longer than is necessary damages both flavour and texture, it is important to test for the setting point EARLIER than you might expect to be the precise point, and FREQUENTLY, so you will more readily KNOW when the jam is at the required point without overshooting and ruining your masterpiece.
Interestingly, the gelling process increases as the jam cools in the jars and even over the first few weeks of storage. This is why it is best to stop boiling as SOON AS you detect clear wrinkling, knowing that the jam will ease itself into an impressively delicious gel.
Making excellent marmalade is an art. The art is in the setting point as much as in the flavours.