Tantalise your Toast with Sweet, Zesty Seville Orange Marmalade

Top tip – don’t go outside to kick a ball around when your marmalade is bubbling away. The good news was that my induction hob is easy to clean and this recipe is fairly forgiving – so despite my attempts to mess it up, the marmalade was clear; not too set; and had the right balance between sour, bitter citrus and sweet. I’ve slightly adapted a Riverfood Farm recipe, reducing the sugar and simplifying the method. This is still a long recipe, but simple and highly satisfying. You’ll end up with a lovely smelling kitchen, hopefully without a sticky mess; a treat for breakfast every morning; or jars to give away.

• 1.5kg Seville Oranges
• 2 lemons
• 1.5 – 2.0kg sugar – white caster or granulated. The amount will be determined after you’ve simmered the peel, juice and water
• 10 or so jars and lids – fresh from the dishwasher and sterilised as described below

Peel the oranges with a sharp peeler – I like the T-shaped ones – you’re aiming to leave all the white pith on the fruit and just remove long strips of peel. Then with a really sharp, large knife, slice the peel into long strips as thin as you like them. It takes a while – ten to fifteen minutes – but everything smells good whilst you chop.

I’ve tried other methods using a food processor, or cooking the oranges whole first, but the ease is offset by the finished result – marmalade which isn’t as clear and bright tasting, or odd shaped strips of peel. Given the satisfaction of making your own, or the ease of just going out to buy a jar of not-so-great marmalade, I think it is worth doing it well. So there!

Cut the oranges and lemons in half and squeeze them into a big piece of muslin over a large saucepan. You’ll tie it up at the end with all the halved fruit shells and numerous pips inside. I have a natty bag from Lakeland with an elasticated opening; which makes it very easy as you can put your hand into it, squeeze the fruit and just let go of the squeezed half, with no risk of stray pips getting into the pan. Add the shredded peel to the juice and the bag of squeezed fruit and pips in the pan. Pour in 2.5l of water and bring the whole lot to a simmer over medium/low heat. Let bubble gently for around two hours, until the peel is completely tender to bite. You may be shocked how bitter it tastes, with no hint of the juice. Fret not, as the sugar will change all that.

Let cool, with the bag hung over the top to drip. Again, I have a cheap stand from Lakeland, pictured below, that makes this easy. Once the bag and contents have cooled enough to handle, squeeze with your hands – preferably wearing disposable gloves – to gloop all the pectin-rich gunk into the pan. Dispose of the contents of the muslin, they’ve done their thing.

Measure the volume of liquid and peel in the pan (easy if you have a scale for every 100ml or 0.5l up the inside of the pan, but otherwise you may have to pour it out to measure.) Then multiply that amount by 0.8 and add that weight of sugar to the pan. In my case that was 2kg sugar for the 2.5l of liquid and peel. It sounds a huge amount, but is a lot less than the traditional 50:50 mixture. Any less and it will taste too sharp, be tough to set and may not keep for as long.

Put the pan back over a medium heat, stirring once in a while until the sugar has melted. The turn up the heat to high – enough for the mixture to bubble vigorously (a “rolling boil”) – but not enough for it to boil over the top. Let cook for around half an hour and resist the temptation to leave the kitchen – like I did with two of three batches I made this year – as it will overflow.

In the meantime, put around ten clean jars from the dishwasher to sterilise in the oven, at 140°C for at least twenty minutes. Once done, let the jars cool a little inverted on a rack and make sure you don’t touch the insides. Don’t touch the inside of the clean lids either.

Every quarter of an hour after you’ve set the mixture to boil, test to see if the marmalade has reached setting-point. A few different ways to do this – I find the third one the easiest and the most reliable:

• The Nerdy – a sugar thermometer reads 104.5°C
• The Traditional – pour a few drops on a cold saucer from the freezer and see if it forms gentle waves when you push your finger into it
• The Flake test – dip a spoon or spatula in the saucepan and twirl it 3 times over the top, letting the marmalade drip back in. If it starts to form a long, large drip; rather than multiple small individual drops, then the marmalade will set fine.

Then set your jars the right way up on the cooling rack and pour the hot marmalade in. You can use a wide-mouth funnel to try to stop getting drips everywhere. Fill them close to the brim and if you have lids lined with plastic, or whatever they use to stop them going rusty, then there’s no need for wax disks. Put the lids on tightly (wearing oven gloves) and briefly invert. That way you’ve covered the inside of the lid with hot liquid which should ensure they are sterile. Let cool. It may taste even better after a few months in the jar, but I’ve always run out of last year’s batch by January, so I dig in straight away with pleasure.