Marmalade time!

[Flosshilde]

The Seville oranges are here & I've started on my first batch of marmalade. Does anyone else make their own, & have any favourite recipes/flavourings?

[scottycelt]

I've been begging the wife for years to have a go at this, Floss ...

http://www.lovefood.com/guide/recipes/10828/seville-orange-whisky-marmalade

[Flosshilde]

This is my 37th year, Scotty. I think I might take the easy option when I get to 40 (years of making marmalade, that is ) & use the canned ready cooked & cut up oranges. The smell of the oranges cooking is just what you need at this time of the year, though - sharp & fresh.

You could always have a go yourself, Scotty?

[MickyD]

I've sometimes experimented with other citrus fruits in marmalade making - lemon and lime, tangerines, grapefruit etc - all delicious!

[Curalach]

I'm way behind you, Flosshilde as I've only been making marmalade for about 15 years. I make enough to last the whole year and give away quite a lot. I think it's a very therapeutic exercise and I do it all manually ie I don't use the food processor for cutting up the orange rind. I use a simple recipe, seville oranges and a couple of lemons per batch which produces a tangy, fairly thick cut result. It has always interested me that the boil time to set varies so much, batch to batch, given that it is the same recipe and quantities.
Breakfast wouldn't be breakfast without toast and marmalade!

[David Underdown]

I think a lot of the pectin is immediately around the pips, so presumably the variation in setting is related to this?

[Curalach]

You may well be right David. There are certainly a lot of pips in Seville oranges.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Breakfast wouldn't be breakfast without toast and marmalade!

Much better to concentrate on this, rather than sending in text messages.

Marmalade was what made breakfast bearable at my boarding school. :)

[french frank]

Tried twice and ended up with something approaching an orangy version of Golden Syrup. Yes, I did follow the instructions, I did wait for the wrinkles to appear on the saucer. To fresh woods and pastures new

[mangerton]

I think a lot of the pectin is immediately around the pips, so presumably the variation in setting is related to this?

Yes. I remember my mother making marmalade c 50 years ago. She used a Spong mincer (long before food processors!). The pips were separated, and put in a small piece of cloth which was tied to the handle of the jeely (sic) pan, so that the pectin could be extracted.

[arancie33]

I always slice the peel into strips as long and thin as I can - my daughter's test for success is that you can cover the toast with three pieces plus the attendant jeely (except my mother boiled up the pips and attached bits separately then sieved the liquor into the main pan). A few sliced pieces of crystalised ginger (the soft kind) add an extra texture and taste.

[Uncle Monty]

Whenever we're tempted to make marmalade, we sit and look at a jar of Wilkin & Sons Tiptree Orange in silence until the urge passes. Cannot be bettered, why bother trying?

[Chris Newman]

Sir Michael Tippett was a marmaladaholic. He used to happily judge them at competitions. Once he put his recipe in the Guardian in an article on the self-same nourishment. It was superb to make although I left the chunks bigger than he suggested. I moved house about five years ago and have lost the scrap of paper. I have tried Delia S's and Hugh F-W's: both are very nice but not a patch on Sir Michael's. I have tried googling but only find that he loved marmalade, which I know.

If anyone has a copy of Tippett's Marmalade and can print it here I you.

[Ferretfancy]

As Maggie Smith says at breakfast in Gosford Park - "Bought marmalade ! "

Tiptree Tawny Orange is the nearest thing to the real thing I've found so far, and the only one not to contain all those ridiculous additives.

I've just bought Sevilles and made enough to last a year at rather heavy consumption, juicing the oranges, cutting the whole peel, pips in a muslin bag, double the amount of sugar per lb of fruit, water as required and then into the microwave in a pyrex bowl. Perfect results every time, and no mess.

[StephenO]

Tiptree is to marmalade what Ambrosia is to rice pudding - simply the best. As I'm too unadventurous/inept/lazy to make marmalade I tend to stick to Tiptree or Waitrose own brand. It has to be the proper, thick-cut stuff, though. Jelly marmalade just won't do.