Orange Marmalade Adventures...

As the title suggests, my orange marmalade has turned into an adventure as it often happens when you do something for the first time! On the day I had set aside to make my marmalade I made very good progress preparing all the ingredients for the marmalade. Here is the recipe I was using:

• 5 medium oranges
• 1 lemon
• 4 lbs of sugar (which I reduced to 2 cups convinced that 4 lbs seemed excessive)
  
• 8 cups of water

As the recipe instructed me I carefully removed the skin from the oranges and the lemon, paying attention to not remove too much of the white inner skin along with the peel. Next I moved on to cut all the orange and lemon peels into fine strips about 1 1/2" long and 1/8" wide and setting it aside. Then I halved the oranges and lemon and attempted to squeeze all the juice out. That turned out not to be so easy as everyone who has ever tried to squeeze an orange without it's skin will attest to! But eventually I succeeded, yeah!

Next step was to reserve the membranes and whatever parts of the fruit were left over from the squeezing operation and tie them up securely in a piece of Muslin. So I spent a considerable time removing whatever white pith was still remaining on my orange and lemon halves since I do not like orange marmalade that is bitter!

Finally I was ready to progress to the next step which was to place the muslin bag, the orange and lemon juice, the orange and lemon peel and the 8 cups of water into a bowl and let them marinate in the refrigerator until the next day.

I looked around and noticed that I had better clean my kitchen, getting the oranges ready ended up being quite a messy operation!

You can see in the photo what my orange bowl looked like before I placed it in my refrigerator!

Next day it was time to complete the recipe by pouring all the prepared orange mixture including the muslin bag into a large pot and bringing it to a boil. Once boiling I covered the pot, turned the heat down and simmered it for about 2 hours until the skins were nice and soft!

By now the mixture had shrunk considerably which is to be expected. I carefully removed the muslin bag and set it aside in a bowl and then added all of the sugar while stirring the concoction. The recipe called for a short rest period which I observed with a nice cup of tea and another chapter of the book I was currently reading.

After about 1/2 hour I gently squeezed out the muslin bag over the pot, poured whatever juice had drained from the muslin bag into the bowl and then I brought the mixture back to a boil which I kept up for about 15 minutes. While I was sterilizing my glass jars I let the mixture cool down. I thought that the orange mix was a bit runny, but being a neophyte marmalade maker I thought that it might gel once cooled, so I decided to have faith in the recipe and proceeded to fill up my glass jars and sealing them.

The following day I opened a jar to see if it had gelled - alas, no such luck! It was just as runny as the previous day, so I headed to my computer to find out what was wrong. I found out that something called Pectin was available (and fortunately ready for duty in my cupboard) to save the day. I also found out that some recipes call for ground ginger to enhance the flavor of the marmalade and being all in favor of flavor enhancing anything I thought I might as well add some of that as well!

So I added half a package of Pectin to my mix along with a heaping tsp of ground ginger and reheated it in a small pot over medium heat. Once boiling I simmered it an additional 15 minutes and then allowed it to cool over another cup of tea and a peak into my book.

Success! My marmalade now had marmalade consistency and I filled my jars and resealed them properly. I had a small amount left over which I left out for sampling by my trusty food taster and partner Gilbert - who ate all of it claiming he had to in order to being able to come to the conclusion that it was the best he had ever tasted!

Which is music to any cooks ears, thank you Gilbert!