Easy Organic Marmalade Recipe
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Looking for an easy organic marmalade recipe? Try my very favourite recipe, that’s tried and tested and downright delicious.
There are a few things in life I don’t bother with. Organic oranges are one of them. I may be wrong, but my thinking is that the peel is probably too thick for pesticides to get through. My one exception with oranges is when I’m cooking or baking with them and the recipe calls for the zest or peel of an orange. Then I’ll splash out on fancy organic oranges.
The other month I really fancied some marmalade and looked for some in the shops. The cheapest I could find for a jar of organic marmalade was £7, which felt a bit extravagant to me. As we weren’t too far off of marmalade season I thought I would bide my time and make my own organic marmalade to make my money go further.
And here we are – marmalade season! I picked up some organic oranges and managed to make 9 jars of organic marmalade for £8. That’s less than 89p a jar! Take that fancy shop-bought marmalade!
And I thought I’d share my organic marmalade recipe with you today. It’s loosely adapted from this BBC Good Food recipe and I’ve found this to be the easiest way of making marmalade. There is no peeling, adding things to muslin bags, or fretting with a knife whilst trying to remove pith from the peel.
It is rather time-consuming making marmalade though – it did take 3 hours. However, it is a great way to while away a wet Saturday in winter. Plus you’ll have enough jars of amber goodness to keep you smiling of a morning for quite some time to come, which makes it all worthwhile.
Organic Marmalade Recipe
Easy Organic Marmalade Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 kg of organic seville oranges
- 2 kg of granulated sugar (if you want organic sugar then I'd recommend Billington's)
- The juice of one and a half lemons (they don't have to be organic)
- A large heavy bottomed pan (use a cast iron or a preserve pan)
- Several jars and lids (roughly 8-10 jars)
Instructions
- Wash your oranges, then place them whole in a large pan. To the pan add 4 pints of water and the lemon juice.
- Making sure the oranges are fully submerged (I used a pyrex casserole dish lid to weigh them down – see above!), bring it all to a boil. Once boiling, then simmer for 2 hours, until the peel is soft and easily pierced with a fork. I found a lot of water boiled off at this stage so I kept topping it up to keep a consistent level of water.
- After two hours, carefully remove your oranges from the water (I used a spaghetti spoon) then leave to cool. Do not discard the water. At this point also set your oven to 170°C.
- Once the oranges are cool enough to handle, cut them in half. Then, using a spoon, scoop out as much of the pith and stones from each of the orange halves as you can. As the oranges have boiled for so long, the pith should scoop out really easily. Place the pith and stones in a bowl and keep to the side.
- Using a sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut all of the orange skins into very fine strips. You’ll find this to be really quick and easy as the skin is so soft and thin.
- At this point, you will need to sterilise your jars and lids (see this handy guide on how to sterilise jars).
- After you’ve sterilised your jars put all of the pith and stones in to the liquid, and boil for six minutes.
- Once boiled, sieve the liquid into a bowl using a fine sieve. Using a spoon, press down on the pith so that as much liquid is squeezed out as possible into the bowl. Once done, discard the pith, and return the liquid to the pan.
- Add the sugar to the liquid, and stir over a low heat until it’s all dissolved. This can take up to ten minutes. Once dissolved add your orange peel, stir well and bring to the boil.
- Let it boil (a rolling boil with lots of bubbles) for 15 minutes. I found I had to stir my mixture to stop the orange peel from burning to the bottom of the pan. The mixture will spit at you when you do this. Do take extreme care and stand as well back as you can!
- Once 15 minutes is up, remove the pot from the heat and test to see if the marmalade has set. To do this, place a teaspoon of marmalade on a plate, and then place it in the fridge for a minute or two. If the marmalade is still runny after being in the fridge then return the pot to the heat and boil for another ten minutes, and repeat the test. Keep doing this – boiling for ten minutes then removing from the heat and testing – until it sets on the plate.
- Once set you may need to skim any scum from the surface using a spoon. Leave your marmalade to settle for 20 minutes (not on the heat). Then remove your jars from the oven and whilst the marmalade is still warm spoon it into the warm jars. This is messy business and the marmalade and jars can be very hot so do take care. Then before sealing with the sterilised lids be sure to clean the rims of the jars with a clean cloth.
- Stand back and admire your handiwork before enjoying a well deserved slice of marmalade on toast!
I hope you enjoy this organic marmalade recipe! What’s your favourite preserve? Also, do you normally bother buying organic skinned fruit? I would love to hear your thoughts on this!
And if you are big on oranges, then do try my cranberry and orange-infused gin recipe. It’s a good one!
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