Marmalade time!

[David-G]

... yep, we made three batches a couple of weeks back. We misjudged quantities in the first batch - too much water : had to re-boil to reduce, the end result a bit too toffee-like. The other two batches fine, with a good set. Some fifty-seven pots in toto....

Am impressed with your large-scale production. You must have a large larder.

[vinteuil]

It's amazing that Sevilles are on sale in the UK for such a short period. Blink and you miss them.

... had to endure some one-upmanship at a supper party last week : the conversation having turned to marmalade-making, we were saying that we got our sevilles from a local market stall, another guest piped up "Oh, we've just made marmalade. We do it with the bitter oranges from the trees in our garden in Cyprus... "

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[vinteuil]

Does anyone use this method? Cook the Sevilles whole in a pressure cooker. Allow to cool. Remove the oranges. Scoop out their now pulpy middles and strain through a sieve using a wooden spoon. Now cut up the peel into the sizes you prefer. Shove the liquid you boiled them in, the pulp and the peel into a 'mazzling pan' (West Country word) add the correct amount of sugar and boil until the setting is to your liking.

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... interesting !

Mme v wants to know :

. in the pressure cooker, do you use the same amount of water as the weight of the oranges?
. do you have an extra-large pressure cooker?
. what do you do about the pips : does the pressure-cooking release the pectin so they can be discarded?
. do you bag up the pulp &c, or leave it in with the rest of the marmalade-makings?

[vinteuil]

.

Am impressed with your large-scale production. You must have a large larder.

... quite a few of the jars are given away to friends and family - most of the rest goes up into the loft. Various vintages from c 2016 are lurking up there...

.

[oddoneout]

... interesting !

Mme v wants to know :

. in the pressure cooker, do you use the same amount of water as the weight of the oranges?
. do you have an extra-large pressure cooker?
. what do you do about the pips : does the pressure-cooking release the pectin so they can be discarded?
. do you bag up the pulp &c, or leave it in with the rest of the marmalade-makings?

Oh this brings back memories! My mother used to make marmalade 'properly' when the Sevilles came in, and throughout the year as need and availability of cheap citrus demanded. She used a pressure cooker for all her jam making, and I remember hating that hissing monster sitting on the hob, having had the misfortune to be in the kitchen on more than one occasion when the pressure valve blew. Blackberries were a particular problem as they tended to froth easily and copiously and the seeds were just the right size to get stuck where they shouldn't. She did eventually concede that an ordinary pan would be better, as cleaning the kitchen ceiling(covered in polystyrene tiles at that time) wasn't much fun.
Anyway - pips - it was one of the jobs allocated to us children(usually me as I enjoyed doing it and it was a chance to spend one-to-one time with my mother), collecting them up either as the raw fruit was prepped or once the whole fruit had had its preliminary brief boil up(made the fruit soft and easier to cut up into shreds , so they could be put into a bag to be fished out later. Some always got missed, leading to the inevitable criticisms from my father.

[ardcarp]

OK. Here's the Ardcarps' easy marmalade recipe, with quantities. (Specially for Mrs Vinteuil!)

Put 2lbs Sevilles whole into a pressure cooker. Add one and three quarter pints of water.
Pressure cook for 25mins.

When cool cut the oranges in half and scoop out all the pulp and pips into a wire sieve.
Force this through the sieve with a wooden spoon. (No need to remove pips by hand obviously...they get left behind.)

Cut the peel into required shapes. (Easy, 'cos it's now soft.)

Now add the sieved pulp and the cut peel to the juice the oranges were boiled in.

Add four and a half pounds of sugar

Boil for about 15 mins, but test every so often for setting. (We prefer ours to be on the runny side. It seems to have more flavour than hard-set marmalade.)

This makes about 7lbs of marmalade.

(Apologies for the Imperial units. It was Mrs A's Mum's recipe.)

PS Obviously enough pectin is boiled out of the pips during the pressure cooker stage. There's never any problem with setting.

[David-G]

Seems similar to my recipe (post 223) apart from using a pressure cooker, and using rather more sugar - mine uses 1 lb sugar for 1 lb fruit. A question - I am just curious how much gets left in the sieve. Is it basically just the pips? Or does some of the pulp stay behind?

[ardcarp]

The pips and a film of pulp...but most of it gets through.