Seville Orange Marmalade
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Ingredients
  • 12 Seville oranges
  • 900 g sugar
  • 3 litres water
  • .
  • Equipment:
  • 1 very large stainless steel jam pot
  • 1 jelly bag (or cheesecloth and kitchen twine)
  • Sterilized mason jars and lids
  • 1 large funnel
  • 1 long handle wooden spoon
Instructions
  1. Day 1: Quarter the 12 oranges. Set aside three medium bowls. Using your fingers, remove the flesh of the oranges. Squeeze the juice into Bowl 1, put the orange seeds into Bowl 2, and discard the membranes in Bowl 3. Do this with all the oranges.
  2. You will be left with a bunch of quartered orange peels. Seville oranges have a very thick peel, most of which is a soft white "pith." This pith contains pectin, but can be quite bitter. Take a spoon and scrape the bulk of the white pith away from the orange peels. Add the scraped off pith to Bowl 2. Your orange peels should be quite thin now, slice these into thin strips and place in a large stainless steel jam pot. Add the contents of Bowl 1 (juice) into the jam pot. Put the contents of Bowl 2 (seeds and pith) into a jelly bag or tied tightly into some fine cheesecloth. Discard the contents of Bowl 3 (membranes).
  3. Once the contents of Bowl 2 are tightly tied up, add the bag to the jam pot as well and cover with water. (How much you say? Well, make sure the rind and jelly bag are completely covered- roughly 3-4 litres of water. If necessary, weigh down the rinds and jelly bag with a plate. Set aside for 24 hours.
  4. Day 2 (the hard part is over!): Bring the soaked rinds and jelly bag contents to a boil. Keep at a gentle boil for 1 hour until the peel is soft. This is where you really see if you added enough water- if it looks too dry you can add a bit more water at this point. After everything has boiled for an hour, remove the jelly bag and discard the contents. Let the rinds and liquid rest for another 24 hours.
  5. Day 3 (okay, I guess we still have a little work to do...): Sterilize your jars and lids. 12 oranges will probably produce about 1.5 to 2 litres of marmalade. Put on the stove and bring to a boil. Add sugar in proportions of 0.9:1. For example, .9 litres sugar to each 1 litre of liquid / rind. Boil until setting point has been reached. This may take about 45 minutes to an hour depending on how diluted your orange liquid is - you can test with a jelly thermometer or just watch the bubbles. They start out as a very thick layer of light coloured bubbles. As you approach the setting point, the bubble layer collapses. This is your setting point and it happens quite quickly so watch it closely.
  6. Bottle marmalade in your sterilized jars using a wide mouth funnel. Once the jars have cooled, it you think the jelly is too runny (i.e. you didn’t quite make the setting point)- no worries!- wait 24 hours and then reheat the jelly. It’s quite amazing how it can gel up in that time. If you do have to reheat, be very careful that you don’t overdo it because your marmalade will be very tough and gummy. I would recommend that if you have to reheat it, do just that - reheat but don’t bring to a boil. Then, bottle again.
Recipe by Port and Fin at https://portandfin.com/seville-orange-marmalade/