Homemade Orange Marmalade-Tutorial

Hey everyone! Around Christmas bloggy buddy Frog Hollow Farm Girl sent me an amazing jar of homemade Orange Marmalade! So good I may have whimpered when I finished it up. We chatted about the recipe, it was from Ina.

Yesterday as I had a bagel with sub-par store bought marmalade I decided this would be my next project!

 

Ina's recipe can be found on foodtv.com HERE. There appears to be a bit of controversy as to exactly how much sugar to add so I looked at my Ball Blue Book. They say it should be a 1 cup of fruit to 1 cup of sugar ratio. I also have someone's Grandmom's recipe 1 cup fruit to 3/4 cup sugar, so here's what I decided...
With all due respect to Ina and Ball, Granny wins every time!

Day One:

I started with five naval oranges between the size of a tennis ball and baseball, and two lemons.

Using a 1.5MM mandolin (placed on a cookie sheet to collect the juice) I sliced two whole oranges and the lemons. Of course this can be done with a knife too.

Then cut them into smaller pieces so the marmalade would spread nicely.

Take the peel off of three more oranges and slice it into very thin match sticks. The peel does not cook down, whatever size you start with is what you'll have in your marmalade. 

Cut the pith off (toss it) and slice and chop the three oranges.

Sort through the fruit and discard all seeds, the cookie sheet helps - happy hunting:@)

Pour everything into a big pot.

Add 6 cups of water.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 7 minutes (Ball says 5, Granny says 10, I split the difference).

Take off the stove, cover and let sit for 12-18 hours. 

Apparently this "rest" helps develop the natural pectin in the fruit and it is important!

I did everything up to this point late in the afternoon and let it sit over-night.

Day Two:
Put the water bath on to boil, when it's ready...
Bring the fruit up to a boil again and cook rapidly until the peel is tender,
my fruit was thin enough that this only took about 10 minutes.
Carefully measure the fruit and liquid, then return it to the pot.

Add 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar for each cup of fruit.

For 7 cups of fruit I added 5 1/4 cups of sugar (using the 3/4 cup guideline).
I carefully (it's very hot) tasted it, and decided to add 1/4 cup more sugar, just because.

Heat until the sugar is dissolved stirring constantly.
Then cook rapidly until almost the gelling point. As mixture thickens stir constantly so it doesn't burn.
I used #7 on my electric stove, no pictures, boiling sugar is very hot-full attention required!
They say it should take approximately 30 minutes, I boiled mine for 1 hour, stirring constantly.
My thermometer barely went above 210 degrees. Since Ball said boil it until just below the gelling point (add 8 degrees to boiling), I would occasionally spoon some onto a chilled plate, let it cool then run my finger through it. As soon as it left a clean line on the plate (and did not run back into itself) I called it done.

Skim any foam off of the top, and ladle into sterilized, prepared jars.

Wipe top of jar clean, screw on lids and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Remove from canner, count the "pops" and love life!

Find complete safe canning information and recipes HERE.
Can be stored in a cool dark place for one year.
I hope this is helpful and sounds like something you'd like to try!
Have a happy day:@)

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