Cornish Food Market

A story of how I made Seville Orange Marmalade

January 18, 2011 in Recipes | 0 comments

I am a wannabe domestic goddess with grand sights set on being someone who can effortlessly make culinary delights in the kitchen, so I set aside a plot to make fabulous tasting marmalade for the first time. These lovely jars of golden joy would be given as gifts and used in our house for some time to come. (Although later revelations indicated that my other half didn't actually like marmalade that much, and so I would left to be the one to consume said marmalade....might take a while)

One of our lovely customers, John Walker sent me his recipe for Seville orange marmalade (you can find John's recipe on our recipe section), I had a read and thought, why not? My preconceived fears of time consuming hours and hours of labour spent slaving over the stove were diminished after reading John's recipe. He has taken what would be long drawn out process (sometimes overnight as detailed in other recipes) and made it incredibly simple.

So, on Sunday afternoon, I retrieved the electric juicer from its dark existence at the back of the cupboard, cut 2.5kg (about 13 Seville's) in half and began juicing. After following John's instructions in full, I tested the marmalade was ready by placing a tea spoon-sized amount on a cold plate in the fridge, after 15 minutes it wasn't runny anymore - hey presto..and all done in just over an hour!

The messiest part of this process is the transference of marmalade into jars. Herein lies the problem and what NOT to do, I sent the other half to fetch the jars for me earlier on in the day, which he duly did. Problem - jars where tiny and came with no lids. Whoops, this last step would need to be left to the following day.

Following day comes, I have sterilised new jars (bigger and with lids) in the oven. Ladle at the ready (although I would also suggest investing in a funnel for a less-mess, less-sticky effect). I delve in to my pot of marmalade, only to discover, as you may have guessed, it is now solidified. I have one very large pot of solidified marmalade, joy.

After a gentle amount of heating, the marmalade is now in a more manageable state and after a few minutes I have 14 jars of golden delight and I am feeling rather smug. (It’s rather tasty too).

I suggest trying this, if you have some Seville Oranges and a spare hour, give it a try.

Jess, cornishfoodmarket.co.uk team member